Timepiece
by Garrae
Summary: Castle's had a few watches, down the last few years. Beckett has one watch. It has, according to her, been hers for the last five years. He's never seen her wear another. And now it's in pieces in her wrecked apartment.
1. Chapter 1

**So it's Mobazan27's fault, again. This is AU from Boom, which was merely a jumping off point. Beckett has been a little more injured than the episode, her apartment is considerably more wrecked, and she is not present once CSU start on her apartment. All discontinuities from canon are deliberate. Thanks to DrDit92 and WRTRD for correcting my American, and to DX2012 for encouragement.**

 **1: Stop all the clocks**

He's had a few watches, down the last few years. The one he bought with his first best-seller royalties, a bit flashy, obviously expensive: _look at me I've arrived_. He still has that one, carefully put away. Since then, he's had several, more tasteful, more discreet (that would surprise a number of people) and some full of interesting gadgets. He hasn't been attached to any of them, they've been a way to tell the time and have something to play with when he's really bored, or his phone's run out of battery, or he isn't at the precinct or otherwise staring at Beckett.

Beckett has one watch. It has, according to her, been hers for the last five years. He's never seen her wear another. It's her father's: a symbol of his rehabilitation, or resurrection. He's never pried into that relationship: he doesn't dare. It's a can of potential worms he doesn't want or need to open.

Except now her watch is shattered. Blown up, with the rest of her apartment and very nearly her. It wasn't until he'd got her out, wrapped in his jacket (he tries very hard not to think that she was naked in his arms and now he knows what she looks like unclad), that he realised that her necklace and watch – her mother's ring on its chain and her father's watch – were still in there, and so when the EMTs had shooed him away and he'd told Beckett he was going to see if he could get her some clothes and refused to listen to any protest of any sort at all – and he will suffer for it, he is sure – he had gone back.

He'd thought it was a fool's errand, initially. The firefighters, then CSU, had smiled at him, and not asked too much about his reasons. CSU had reassured him, and told him to tell Beckett, that they'd be done before tomorrow. He supposes that they must understand the need to preserve that which can be preserved, in the face of disaster. He'd searched her scorched, charred bureau, and found the chain and ring in it, a little dirty, but intact, together with – how amazingly fortunate – her wallet. The watch… well, he'd found the main pieces. He thinks he had, anyway.

Standing in the wreckage of the apartment, it comes home to him hard that if he'd not spotted the discontinuity, if he hadn't phoned and kept phoning, if she hadn't picked up _just_ in time and dived for the limited protection of the bathtub – he'd be looking at her charred corpse, not a charred bureau. He dives for the filthy toilet and throws up till his stomach is empty and his throat raw with acid. He could have lost her, without ever finding her. He could have lost her and she'd never have known how he felt. He could have lost her.

He could have lost her without _he_ ever realising how he felt. When the apartment blew and he was still on the corner frantically redialling and redialling… there in the flames it all became clear. He loves her, with all that he is.

But. He can't dwell on that now, no matter how much he wants to. He's been here too long: buying a quick set of clothes to cover her would only take a few moments, and he needs to get back, get on with it, get her. She's got nowhere to sleep – her _bed_ is blown to splinters and threads. He nearly throws up again.

He leaves, hurriedly, sympathetic glances from CSU following him. Over the still-present nausea, he snaps into action. Contrary to his public, easy-going, casually disorganised charming self, he is actually pretty effective when he has a goal in mind. Right now, he has a goal. One goal, in several parts. None of which he intends to mention to Beckett.

He brings up his contact list and starts with the name of a clothes service which he knows can get just about anything out of just about any fabric.

"Jackie," he says smoothly. "Rick Castle." There's a delighted squeal.

"Rick! Long time no see. How've you been?"

"I'm fine, Jackie. I need your specialised talents and ability to get any stain out of anything if it's possible at all."

"Sure, Rick. What is it this time? Blood, mud, other fluids too disgusting to mention on the phone?"

"No. Smoke, a little light charring, burns."

"What? Are you okay? What's happened?"

"Not me, Jackie. A friend. Her apartment blew up and I wanna see if any of her clothes are salvageable. Will you have a look for me, if I meet you there tomorrow?"

"Sure, Rick," Jackie says again. "No problem. When d'you want me to take a look?"

"Can we make it early? Eight?"

"Sure. Might get it done before nine, that way."

"Thanks, Jackie. I owe you. Till tomorrow."

"Bye."

He wanders a little further down the street, and has a similar conversation with a furniture restorer of his acquaintance, for eight-fifteen, and then with a bookseller. He hasn't let on, and he doesn't think that Beckett has quite worked it out in full though she's certainly suspicious, that he has pretty close to an eidetic memory and that two nights ago, while she was apparently sleeping (he's not quite sure about that), he'd read down the shelves of her bookcase and the titles of all her books. He thinks that with a little effort and some help he can first list them and secondly replace them. Though maybe not Patterson's. He doesn't need his sales boosted. Or Connelly's, for that matter.

He flicks into a cheap shop, acquires a navy t-shirt and sweats, and hurries back to the bus. Despite the length of time he's been away, matters are still under investigation. Specifically, the EMTs are trying to investigate Beckett, who is trying to investigate the case. It doesn't appear that either is successful.

"Where are Ryan and Esposito?" he hears, as he approaches, in the unmistakeable tones of very irritated Beckett. "Give me my phone back."

"Ms" –

" _Detective!_ " Clearly that mistake has been made several times already.

"Detective, you _do not have a phone_." The EMT's patience has clearly snapped. "It was _blown up_. As were you. Now lie down, shut up, and let me do a proper exam or I will take you to hospital to do it there. And I can absolutely guarantee that if I have to do that you will wait all night for it to be done."

There is an infuriated mutter.

"Beckett?" Castle says tentatively, "Beckett, let the poor guy do his job. I brought you some clothes – if they let you out."

Beckett looks full at him. "Castle? What kept you?" But under the irritation he can see real relief that he is there, and not a little retained terror from earlier. He heaves himself into the ambulance.

"Finding a colour that suited you," he says lightly. "Now lie down and let the EMT work." Beckett harrumphs. "I'll buy you a lollipop later, if you're good." Another harrumph, but Beckett starts to lie down. Then she turns a nasty shade of green, and the EMT (for whom Castle has now acquired considerable respect) only just gets a bowl to her in time.

"Right. _You_ are going to hospital. You might have a concussion, and it needs to be looked at properly. Given that you clearly won't behave" – Castle winces, and considers whether he will need to restrain Beckett from killing the EMT – "if left alone, I'm taking you in."

"But" –

Castle chops that one off short.

"Beckett, just do it. You need checked out properly. I'll send Ryan and Espo to the – which hospital is it?"

"Bellevue."

" – to Bellevue."

He pats her hand, tentatively. That's all too close to the line they never cross. But her fingers turn over beneath his touch and curl a little, so he curls back and gently, unobtrusively, holds her hand. She's suddenly very pale, and he thinks that only trying to intimidate the EMT and trying to investigate this case has kept her – metaphorically – on her feet.

"Do you want me to stay?" A little snark returns.

"Trying to get a better look at me naked, Castle?" But she's smiling.

"I didn't peek!" he says, offended. (Of course he did.)

The EMT has strong views on Castle's continued presence.

"I want you to stay, whoever you are. If you'll keep her quiet while I finish this examination then I'll even consider hiring you." Beckett splutters. Castle tip-taps his fingers on the back of her hand and she subsides, eyes drifting shut.

The EMT makes a swift examination, during which Beckett emits several unhappy yowls and one loud yell. Finally it's over, by which time several small bones in Castle's hand might have been broken or severely displaced.

"Okay, _Detective_." The EMT manages an inflection on that word which Beckett herself couldn't have matched for sarcasm. "You probably have a concussion. You have a lot of very nasty cuts and bruises which need a proper clean-up" – he looks as if he'd rather wrangle a full-grown tiger away from its dinner – "and you may have a broken rib, which should be X-rayed to ensure it doesn't move" – he stops, looks at Beckett, clearly remembers the last half hour or so – "to ensure that you don't do something that makes it shift and puncture your lung." Castle has no idea if that is correct or not, but he approves of the threat if it will keep Beckett marginally safer for one night. "I'm taking you to Bellevue."

Beckett opens her mouth. Castle puts a hand over it and hopes she doesn't bite. His hand, that is. She could bite other places in other circumstances and he wouldn't mind a bit. Or a bite. She subsides, again.

"Don't wanna go to hospital," she mutters.

"You have to, Beckett. Be a good girl or you won't get your lollipop," Castle smirks. "I'll come with you till you're settled." There's another mutter, but she's now dreadfully white and it's obvious that everything has just fallen in on her. She's gripping his hand as if she's never going to let go.

Castle disposes of Beckett at Bellevue with the cheap clothes and, when the full examination begins and he tactfully leaves, is followed out by vile imprecations delivered in an unusually pathetic tone. By that time Ryan and Espo have appeared and Castle basely leaves them to take the brunt of bruised and battered Beckett. He imagines that shortly they will be metaphorically bruised too. For now, he has an errand to run.

It takes him half an hour to get to his destination, and five full more minutes once there to reach Michael, who is far too well-protected by his staff. Eventually Michael appears, jeweller's loupe dangling, white hair surrounding a happy, roundish face and bright eyes, small, dextrous hands raised in greeting. Aptly, he resembles an elderly Santa's elf.

"Rick!" he says happily. Michael damn well should be happy to see him. Every time Castle comes here he drops an extraordinary amount of money in presents for his mother, which is why he only comes once or twice a year. And, previously, in engagement rings, of course. But he's done with that… for now. For the first time in years, he thinks that maybe… maybe third time lucky? But that's not for today.

"Hey," he says.

"What can I show you today? Necklaces? Earrings? Signet ring?" Castle winces at the last suggestion.

"Actually, I've got something to show you." Michael looks surprised.

"That's new. What is it?"

Castle pulls out a handkerchief and lays it delicately on the counter. The pieces look even more miserably pathetic than they did when he picked them up.

"It used to be a watch."

"Mmmm. It would be a lot easier to buy a new one, Rick."

"It's not mine. My… friend's apartment blew up and this has sentimental value. I thought maybe you could fix it."

Michael gives Castle a very sidelong, interrogative look and says nothing, very loudly indeed.

"Can you fix it?"

He pokes the remains, screws his loupe in and reaches for tweezers, examining each fragment. Suddenly he emits a happy noise.

"What?" Castle asks.

"Most of the name." He smiles, beautifully. "With the name, this will be so much easier." He peers at it again. "Mmmm," he says thoughtfully. "Mmmmm."

"What?"

"Mmmmm. Very interesting."

Castle strangles his urge to strangle Michael, recognising that this has stemmed from his terror at Beckett's near miss with death.

" _What_ is very interesting?"

"This. It's really quite unusual. Quite valuable. I hope your friend has it insured."

"I suppose so," Castle says, slightly nonplussed. "But can you repair it?"

"Oh, yes. Now we've found the name. Want to help?"

"Yes!" Castle says, without thinking, and then, "Oh. I can't, right now. I have to get back to the hospital to see her. Well, to stop her killing the doctors. She wasn't keen on going in the first place. I promised her a lollipop," he says inconsequentially. "Do you know where I can get a coffee-flavoured lollipop round here?"

"No," Michael says firmly. "I don't do lollipops. But if I were you I'd try the sweetshop two blocks east."

"How long will it take to mend?" Castle asks.

"Mmmmm," his friend hums. "Call me tomorrow. I'll have an idea how long the parts will take to arrive then, and a price. I won't be able to start till then anyway, so you can come and help if you want."

"Price isn't important. Just fix it, as fast as you can? And…" he pauses, almost shy, "…I'd like to help, if I can?" He puts a hand in his pocket, a little embarrassed under Michael's knowing look, and remembers something else. "Can you clean this up now?" He produces Beckett's chain and ring.

"Sure." Michael disappears for a few moments, and returns both items sparkling clean in a small box.

"Thanks. Roll it into one?"

"Okay, Rick.

Castle decamps at some speed towards Bellevue, mainly to try and preserve New York's medical profession from the wrath of Beckett. He does stop to get a lollipop on the way, though he can't manage coffee flavour. Lemon will have to do. It'll match Beckett's likely disposition, that's for sure.

He's not wrong. The nursing staff are only too pleased to direct him towards Beckett's location. He can see the dark miasma of angry Beckett-ness spilling out of the door of the cubicle they've put her in. He sidles up, unashamedly eavesdropping, detects the cool, controlled tones of an absolutely furious Beckett, who clearly dislikes intensely whatever she's being told, and listens hard.

"Detective Beckett, you will need to stay here tonight. You have a concussion and you have nowhere to stay safely." Castle ponders that. He is intending to offer Beckett a temporary home, but he wants Montgomery on side – and present – when he does, otherwise Beckett will refuse. So, much as she dislikes it, she'd better stay in hospital.

"I'll be fine."

"In addition, you have two cracked ribs" – the doctor's tone changes – "and you're damn lucky that's all. If there's no-one to look after you, you're not going home." Castle is perfectly certain the doctor knows he can't stop Beckett discharging herself, but he, Castle, can provide some – er – moral support.

"Now, Beckett," he oozes, "stop being difficult to the nice doctor or you won't get your lollipop." Beckett's eyes flash up to him and for a moment he thinks he'll get shot. He waggles the lollipop enticingly. Her face remains scowling blackly for a second, then dissolves into a sulky look.

"I'll be fine."

"Don't be silly," Castle says briskly. "If the doctor says you have to stay, you stay." He grins. "I'll stay too, if you like. Talk to you for a while. Besides which, I've brought you a present, but you're not getting it till you're safely settled."

Beckett grumps and grumbles and moans and mutters and sulks. She even pouts. None of it has any effect on the doctor, who is professionally immune, or Castle, who has developed parental immunity. Though he's not immune to the desire simply to kiss the pout off her face, he's strengthening his resistance by the moment. Eventually, she is settled in a very small room, in a standard-issue hospital nightshirt, which room is shortly filled with an atmosphere of intense irritation.

"Do you want your lollipop now?"

"Yes, please," Beckett huffs. She unwraps it in one swift, ferocious movement, and stuffs it in her mouth without looking. Her lips pinch in. "Lemon?"

"Yeah. Best they had. They didn't have coffee lollipops. Major flaw in their sales strategy."

"Thanks anyway. Gotta be better than Jell-O." Her lips twist round the lollipop. "I don't need to be here. I need to be on the case."

"Not tonight. Leave it to Ryan and Espo. If you don't…" he searches for a threat… "I'll set Lanie on you. Or your dad."

"Not fair."

Castle smiles evilly.

"Effective, though. Anyway," he says, throwing distraction in her path, "I brought you a present. Wanna see?"

Beckett looks at him suspiciously as he pulls the box out of his pocket.

"Death-bed proposals are inappropriate," she snarks.

"Just as well you aren't on your death-bed and I wasn't planning to propose," Castle flips back, and just for an instant thinks that he sees a little flash of hurt. That's … interesting. Also likely wrong. "I'd never recover from being turned down." Another odd expression.

He opens the box. "It's your chain and your mother's ring. I got it all cleaned up for you." He expects delight. He doesn't expect Beckett bursting into tears. Fortunately, he knows how to deal with tearful women, even if this is the one woman with whom he'd never anticipated needing to use it. He slides up on to the bed and cuddles her extremely carefully into his shoulder, patting her hair gently. "There, there," he murmurs. "It's fine. It'll all be okay." He pets some more. "We'll catch him." There's a soggy mutter which on analysis sounds like _we'd better._ That's his Beckett. Shame he can't cuddle her _properly_ , but cracked ribs are no joke.

"Do you want it on, or shall I take care of it till tomorrow?"

Beckett sniffs moistly, and looks up at him.

"On, please." She sniffs again. "Something… something I haven't lost." Castle declines to comment on the steps he's taking tomorrow to salvage her effects, or on the watch. "It's all gone. Everything. All my books, my pictures, my dad's watch…" She dissolves again. Castle continues patting and waits patiently for far too short a time.

"Do you want me to stay, Beckett? I will if you do."

"Please? Just for a little while." He's never known her ask for anything – well, ask _him_ for anything – before. It's unnatural. Very nice – once – but unnatural. She must still be in shock, which, he supposes, is hardly surprising. _He's_ still pretty much in shock and he hadn't even been in the building. She'd been right in the middle of it… he feels nauseous, again.

* * *

 _This is fluff. Extended fluff. Thank you to everyone who reads and reviews._


	2. Chapter 2

**2: Father Time**

"Did the boys have anything?"

"No." Her face tries to crumple again and is ruthlessly ironed into professionalism. "The Feds took over and told them to go home till tomorrow." Another nearly-crumple. "I'll need to find a new apartment. Oh, God. When am I going to do that?"

"Tomorrow. I'll lend you my laptop and you can start searching," Castle says, knowing what the next request will be."

"Lend me it now?" Beckett says hopefully, and then realises what she had said. "Sorry. That's not fair. You've just got here and I'm being selfish."

"I'll lend you it tomorrow," – _in my loft_ – "okay? Gotta clean off all the Nikki scenes." Beckett glares fearsomely. "What? No spoilers. Not even for my muse."

"I will break all your legs."

"And after I rescued you so heroically, too. How will I sweep you up and out of burning buildings if I'm in traction?" He pouts, exaggeratedly. "Not that I'm going to rescue you again. You didn't even say thank you in the traditional fashion."

"I _did_ say thank you. Several times over."

Castle grins mischievously and watches an expression of confused, cross suspicion bleed into Beckett's face.

"Not properly, Beckett. The traditional thank you for a heroic rescuer" – the expected rude snort mysteriously doesn't appear, and he belatedly realises that Beckett is still leaning against his shoulder and he is still patting her hair. Well, not _precisely_ patting. Somewhere along the way it's turned into more of a stroke – " is a kiss."

He expects her to hit him, or amputate his ear or nose – or head – but he certainly doesn't expect her to turn her face up and peck him on the cheek. Briefly. Far too briefly. So briefly that he's not sure it happened at all, especially when she yelps, winces, and emits a string of _ow_ cut with some words he's sure shouldn't be printed in a family newspaper even if they are in a foreign language. So that's what Russian swearing sounds like. Her evident pain recalls him to his fast-fleeing senses, just before he grabs her, hauls her into his lap, and shows her what a _proper_ kiss feels like. If he tries that he'll probably puncture her lung.

"Have you taken any painkillers?"

Beckett suddenly looks guilty and defensive.

"Not yet." Castle merely raises an eyebrow in a parentally _wasn't-that-a-bit-dumb_ interrogative fashion. "I wanted to talk to the boys and the Feds and I need to think."

"You don't need to think till tomorrow. It's almost eight p.m." – how did it get that late? – "so take the pills, sleep properly – well, as properly as you can if they're going to wake you up every couple of hours." There's a question in her eyes. "Suspected concussion. Remember? That's why you can't be let go. When you get to the precinct, call me." There's that odd flash of might-be-hurt again.

"Won't you be there?"

"Yes, but not till I know you've been released. Why would I go to the precinct if you're still stuck here?"

"You could carry on playing with the Feds' toys." There's more than a hint of bitterness and jealousy in that. Castle considers and swiftly rejects a flippant answer.

"Not as much fun on my own. Besides which, they won't let me if you're not there." He picks up a glass from the nightstand and fills it with water. "Take your" – he looks at the tablets – "horse pills – _how_ are you supposed to swallow those? – and snuggle down."

"Can't snuggle. Hurts." Beckett swallows her pills with only a minor amount of life-threatening choking. When she's done, Castle puts his arm firmly behind her shoulders. She glares.

"Lean back, Beckett."

"Your arm is in the way."

"Yes, now lean back against it and I'll lower you down." She glares sceptically, but does what she's asked. (Must be the painkillers.) He lowers very, very carefully, as if she's a soap bubble he doesn't want to burst, and lands her safely on the pillows. "There."

"Thank you." Beckett looks surprisingly small and pathetic in a clinically neat hospital bed. Her fingers make a small movement towards him, and he links in with them.

"Go to sleep, Beckett. We'll sort it all out in the morning." Castle pats her hand, and – because if she pecked his cheek then clearly kisses are _allowed_ – drops a reasonably affectionate and asexual kiss on her forehead in lieu of his strong desire to place a thoroughly sexual kiss on her lips. "Night night."

He thinks there's a mutter of _not a child_ behind him as he leaves.

* * *

By nine-fifteen a.m. Castle has deposited Beckett's remaining, extremely scanty, wardrobe on Jackie's willing arms and van, told her to send the bill to him; done much the same with the furniture restorer, who had looked round dyspeptically, sucked his teeth dispiritedly, and pointed out that almost nothing could be saved. Castle had asked enough questions to be sure that this was indeed the case and not a play for doubled prices, looked at the wreckage, controlled the rerun of bubbling nausea at the charred smell and locked up behind them. He had e-mailed the book list to his favourite bookseller last night, after he'd gone home. For some reason sleeping had not been the first item on his to-do list, and when he'd eventually tried he'd had more than a few nightmares. For once, waking early had been easy.

All this admin taken care of, he regards his phone, willing it to ring and be either Beckett or Michael. When it is obdurately silent, he collects a coffee in a handy café, together with some breakfast, and peruses the paper. The explosion has made it to page fifteen, some way behind the misdoings of various politicians and an opinion piece on why children don't read any more. Castle is harrumphingly unimpressed by both, until he realises that he sounds like a grumpy old man and stops, rapidly. He may be forty but he's not _old_. Or grumpy, for that matter. He is in his prime.

Fortunately, before he can mutter himself into grey hair and wrinkles, his phone cheeps. It's Beckett. Castle bounces off to the precinct undeterred by Beckett's irritation and general bad mood but takes the precaution of purchasing her coffee and a bear claw as he does.

It's just as well. The FBI aren't letting Beckett play – well, they are, but Agent Shaw has made it clear that _she_ is in charge and Beckett is not taking that very well at all. And then, of course, there is the small matter of Beckett's accommodation for the next few days or weeks. Hmmm.

The final straw is when Shaw says that Beckett is too close to the case and shoves her off it, only just not literally. Beckett goes to complain to Montgomery, and gets nowhere. And then Montgomery tells her to go home. Three…two…one – boom!

"Sir, I don't _have_ a home," Beckett points out, in what, if she weren't talking to her Captain, might have included the phrase _you unmitigated idiot_ , with added emphasis. It's Castle's opportunity. He exchanges a meaningful glance with Montgomery, who nods once, firmly, when Beckett isn't looking. Translation: _I'd rather you get shot than me, Castle, but I'll back you up_.

"Yes, you do," Castle says firmly. "It's a secured building, with an extra bedroom, with people who care about you, with a Federal detail at the door. It's the safest place in the city." _And you are staying with me, if I have to put you in handcuffs, sling you over my shoulder and carry you there._ He would be horrified at his caveman instincts, if only the thought of carrying Beckett off to his lair wasn't so very appealing.

"Thank you, Castle, but I couldn't." It's exactly what he'd expected.

"You can and you will," he answers, in a tone he's never used to Beckett before and if he values his life may never do again. He flicks a sharp glance to Montgomery, who backs him up. Much to both their astonishment – especially since that's an order that Montgomery has no right to give and no ability to enforce – Beckett capitulates.

"Detective."

"Sir?"

"Take the rest of the day off." Montgomery, no fool, spots the argument rising in her larynx. "That's an order too. Go shopping. You must need to replace some things immediately. And you should rest and recover. In fact – I'd say take a couple of days until you can breathe without it hurting, but you won't, so it's desk duty for you for the next day or two."

"Oooohhhh," Castle singsongs annoyingly. "Let's go shopping, Beckett. I love shopping." He's steering her out of the Captain's office and towards the elevator. "What shall we go shopping for," he says happily as it arrives. "I know" – they step inside and the doors close – "clothes. Specifically, Beckett, underclothes."

"You are not coming any sort of clothes shopping with me, Castle. Especially not for lingerie."

"But Beckett," he whines, "I wanna see what you buy." She glares ferociously, and backs it up with a threatening move of her hand towards his ear. "Or is it going to be a surprise? I love surprises."

"You are not seeing my underwear. On a shelf or on me."

"I'd rather see it on the fl – _ow_! Ow, ow, owww! Stoppit! Ow, that _hurts_ , Beckett! Leave my ear alone! Apples!"

"You are not coming shopping with me," Beckett says freezingly. Castle emits a few protests which achieve nothing. Fortunately, that's exactly what he wants. He'd been perfectly sure that Beckett, if properly primed, wouldn't want him along, and he's achieved that in spades, at the expense of the cartilage in his left ear. Perfect. Now he can go to Michael's and help to mend the watch.

He whines a little more at not getting to go along with Beckett, for show, tells her that she'll need to call him when she wants to get home, gets snapped at for forgetting that Beckett has no phone – more astoundingly, is almost instantly apologised to for being snapped at, and points Beckett in the direction of the phone store.

Michael is pleased to see Castle, and willingly displays all sorts of bits and pieces, tiny tools and delicate clamps and soldering irons on an elfin scale. Disappointingly, it seems that it will take another day or two for all the small items to be delivered, but there are a few things that can be done. Castle obediently hands over tools in accordance with Michael's surgeon-precise instructions, but isn't allowed to do anything that carries any risk of damage. According to Michael, Castle's fingers are too large and too thick and too clumsy to be allowed near delicate mechanisms. Observing Michael's flittering fingers, Castle admits very privately that Michael might be right.

Castle is idly examining bits and pieces of expensive prettiness for Alexis and bits and pieces of expensive over-the-topness for his mother when his phone goes. It's Beckett. Somehow she's managed to get her own number reinstated, do her shopping, and contact him, in less than two hours.

"Hey, Beckett. All done?"

"Yeah." She sounds tired – weary. He wants to catch her in and cuddle all the tired weariness and banked sadness away.

"Where are you? I'll meet you."

"I'm close to yours. Can you meet me there?"

"Okay. Twenty minutes? There's a good coffee bar at 399 West Broadway."

"Already in it." He supposes that he should have expected that.

"See you in the coffee bar, then. I've got spare keys at home so you'll be okay any other time."

"Okay. See you."

Castle bids farewell to Michael without having made a dent in his bank balance (tempted though he was) and trots off to find Beckett.

He finds her meditatively sipping her usual coffee order, which augurs well, and chewing on her lip, which doesn't. He clings to the thought that if it were disaster she'd be on double espressos, and sits down. Used to his mother's shopping habits, he is astonished by the limited number of bags. Bag. Singular.

"Did you actually shop?" falls out of his mouth.

"Yeah. Just the basics. I'll need to go round and see what can be dry-cleaned later." The prospect doesn't seem to be enthusing her.

"Er… about that."

"Yeah?"

"I called someone. Yesterday. They came this morning and took all the cleanable stuff. It'll be delivered to the loft tomorrow. Er… there wasn't much left." He glances at the bag. "You might need a bit more than that."

He expects annoyance, irritation, a flip retort – almost anything except what he actually gets.

"You did that for me?" Her eyes drop – but not before he sees the hard blink to dispose of the excess moisture – and she buries her nose in her coffee. "Thank you. That's …you didn't have to do that. I'll pay you back the cost."

"Not needed, Beckett." She opens her mouth to argue. "Just let me. It's my books that got you into this mess."

Since she's (astonishingly) accepted that, and he is unaccountably (one) not dead, (two) not suffering the torments of the damned and (three) apparently in Beckett's good books, he reveals most of the rest.

"I got a furniture guy to have a look, too. But he said nothing could be saved, really. Sorry, Beckett." She doesn't sniff, or cry. She's a little white, and a lot more tired, suddenly.

"Thanks," is all she manages.

"Let's go home. There's coffee and dinner there, and we can sort you out for tonight."

"Okay."

She trails out after him, lost in thought. Clearly she doesn't like the thought. Castle doesn't ask. He doesn't need to, because he knows. She's adding up everything she's lost, again. And since he wasn't shot last night, and he hasn't been shot now, (or should that be _yet_?) he waits half a step for her to catch up, and puts an ostensibly friendly arm around her shoulders to hug her, ready to retreat at the slightest hint of discomfiture.

There is no discomfiture. There isn't exactly snuggling in, either, but Castle will take his wins where he can get them, and getting Beckett in his arm is a definite win. He preserves that happy state of affairs all the way to his block, and only removes himself to a safe distance on entering. He's as unsure that she noticed his arm leaving as he was unsure that she noticed it arriving.

Dinner passes off peacefully. Beckett accepts coffee, sits in an armchair and makes gentle conversation about nothing in particular, listens to Alexis and provides her with sensible, if occasionally wincingly blunt, advice when asked, and retreats to the guest room shortly after ten to shower and try to sleep, she explains.

Castle retreats to his own sanctum to write, and tries not to think too much about Beckett showering – naked, and now he _knows_ what her naked body looks like – less than a safe distance away. At this point, that's anything under ten miles. However, she's staying _here_ , in his loft, where she'll be safe and comfortable and he can look after her, to the extent that's possible. He writes for a while – Nikki in the shower, mostly, accompanied by Rook – and then takes himself to a cool shower and bed, resisting the temptation to go and kiss Beckett goodnight.

* * *

Castle wakes in the night, unusually. He normally sleeps like a tired child – not a baby, such a stupid cliché: babies do not sleep well, as every parent knows – but tonight he has been woken by something. An abnormal noise, maybe: a strange sound? Ah. Yes. That would be the stray Beckett in his bed, then. That's okay. He turns over and snuggles down again, tucking her in comfortably.

 _The Beckett in his bed_?

He's jerked into full wakefulness. Beckett is curled up – and into him – whiffling adorably and sound asleep. It is definitely a real Beckett. He is definitely not dreaming. This is still his own universe.

But there's a Beckett in his bed!

Okay. Three a.m. is not the time to wake her up and investigate. It's also not the time to wake her up and make love to her, which is an extremely appealing course of action. It is a good time to make sure she stays tucked in and safe, and then they can talk – _try_ to talk – about this in the morning. Maybe. Or maybe not, more likely.

He closes his eyes and wills himself back to sleep.

* * *

When he wakes, formless flaming nightmares having pursued him on and off throughout, he finds that instead of being spooned into Beckett, she's draped across his chest and he is embracing her. She's still whiffling gently. It's not quite six-thirty.

After a few extremely pleasant moments, Beckett shifts, winces, stretches, winces some more, unfolds very slowly and forces her eyes open. Castle watches with some interest: he'd always thought that Beckett would spring into life instantly, full-formed with power heels, intimidating aspect, shield and gun. Clearly not. She knuckles her eyes, makes a face, blinks sleepily – and only then opens her eyes properly to meet Castle's.

"What are you doing in my bed?" she squawks.

" _Your_ bed? This is _my_ bed, Beckett. What are _you_ doing in it?" He smiles happily, with an undertone of lazy sensuality. "Not that I don't like it, but…"

"What happened?" Oh. She sounds absolutely panicked. Ah. Okay.

"Nothing." There is a massive relaxation. "Did you think…?"

"No, but…. How did I get here?" Castle shrugs.

"Dunno," he rumbles. "I woke up and you were here." He doesn't mention the small hours waking.

Beckett rolls over very cautiously, pushes herself to sitting (Castle admires the form under an oversize sleep tee) and dangles her legs over the side of the bed. Then she stops, slumps, makes a very pained noise and sits back up straight, and ducks her head.

"Oh God," she emits. "Oh God, not again."

Castle waits for a beat or two, in case there should be some explanation.

"Oh God," Beckett repeats. "I thought I'd grown out of that. I'm sorry." Castle is not sorry. Castle is definitely not sorry about whatever caused Beckett to appear in his bed. Castle is, in fact, only too delighted with whatever it is, and he has a pretty good idea by now.

"What?" he asks anyway, standing up and walking round to her side.

"I sometimes used to sleepwalk. When I was small. I haven't done it often since I went to school. Oh God," she wails, sounding absolutely appalled and somehow frightened. "This is awful." There's a half-pause. "It's okay that it was you, but what if I'd ended up in Alexis's room? Or worse, your mother's?"

Castle is speechless. Only part of his silence is due to the appallingly amusing thought of Beckett sleepwalking in on his mother. Most of it is caused by the _first_ comment. _It's okay that it was you_?

"It's okay that it was _me_?" he squeaks breathlessly. Beckett suddenly blushes bright scarlet all the way to her toes. (Very pretty toes.) "Beckett? Wanna explain?"

There's a resounding silence. Castle plumps down beside her, a move he instantly regrets when she hisses with pain.

"Sorry," he says, to no great effect. Beckett casts him a look of ire and, still very cautiously, hoists herself up.

"I'm going to get dressed," she says. Clearly she isn't going to explain, or talk about it. She stands very stiffly and then creaks her way to the door, through Castle's office, and, in a kind of hunched scuttle, makes for the stairs.

* * *

 _Thank you for the amazing response, to all readers, followers, those who favourite and reviewers, especially to the guest reviewers who cannot be thanked individually._

 _Completely separately, last year I asked you about what a tourist could do in New Orleans in spring. Thanks to all who have already replied, whose suggestions prompted me to book! If anyone else has any suggestions, please PM. I have kept a list of the previous replies._


	3. Chapter 3

**3: The times they are a-changin'**

Castle doesn't try to follow her. He stays sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to fit sleepwalking into his personal Beckett-profile. It doesn't fit. On the other hand, Beckett hadn't appeared to be using it as an excuse either: she'd been far, far too embarrassed for that.

His mind snaps back to the main point. _It's okay that it was you_. That could mean anything from _you might as well be my brother_ (ugh) through _I know that I'm safe with you_ (which is true but only possibly flattering, depending on the definition of safe) right up to _I'm madly in love with you and my subconscious has decided to act on it_. (Which is less than likely, to say the least, but maybe a little less unlikely than he might have thought a week ago because after all arms round her and affectionate kisses suddenly seem to be _allowed_.) He ponders all of that through his shower, shaving, dressing, and arriving in the main room to find Beckett clearly on her way out.

"I'm going to the precinct, Castle. See if anyone will let me do anything useful." That comes with a sour-lemon flavour.

"Okay," he says mildly. "Have you got the spare key?" Beckett produces it.

"Thanks. See you later?" She sounds more hopeful than convinced.

"Maybe." There's a flash of disappointment across her face, quickly hidden. "Paperwork is boring."

"How would you know? You never do any."

"See you later, Beckett," Castle says smugly. "Have a good day."

"Bye," she growls.

Castle treats himself to breakfast and an excellent cup of coffee, feeling only very tangentially guilty at deceiving Beckett into thinking he's not keen on going with her. She'll forgive him when he gives her back her watch, though, and on that note he bounces off to the jewellers', asking the doorman to take care of his deliveries – that is, Beckett's laundry – when it arrives.

It occurs to him that she hasn't yet started looking for a new place, but it's only been two days and – he should have thought of this – she's probably still shocked and not thinking straight about it yet. He should suggest an agent to her, but he knows he won't. He wants her to stay too much, especially if she's quite literally sleepwalking into his bed.

Michael is, as ever, pleased to see Castle.

"Come to learn, Rick? I have all but one piece, and I should get that tomorrow. The face is a slightly unusual size, and I had to order it specially, but I can put the mechanisms back together now." He smiles gently up at Castle's intrigued face. "Now, m'boy, are you interested because you're interested in everything, or are you interested because this belongs to that pretty detective?"

"Er… both?"

Michael gazes wisely upon him. "Like that, is it?" He leads Castle back into his workshop/sanctum and lends him a spare loupe. "Now, watch and don't touch unless I tell you to." He picks up a tiny set of tools and starts to assemble the inside. "This will be just as good as new." Three tiny gearwheels are installed with the utmost gentleness. "Now for the chip and battery." They are carefully placed. Castle watches with absorption, leaning closer and closer until Michael taps him firmly on the head. "Out my light, Rick."

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"Okay, that's it for today," Michael says, a little time later, putting the watch-back on to hold everything in place. "Just the hands and the front to go. It'll take me no more than half-an-hour, tomorrow."

"Michael… before you finish it, would you call me?"

"Sure, but why?"

"Well… um… could I put on the face, or the hands or the front? Please? I just want to do something to help. More than simply watch you and pick up the check."

Michael turns and examines Castle closely. "What aren't you telling me, Rick? And should I be expecting you to come in to buy something, soon?"

"Nothing, and no."

Michael raises an interrogative eyebrow of which Beckett herself would be proud.

"Ri…ight," he drawls. "Sure. You're just friends. Right you are, son." Castle looks pleadingly at him. "Okay. But you do _exactly_ what I tell you and nothing more. None of your experiments. If you don't do what I tell you, you'll ruin the watch."

"I'll be really careful. Promise."

"Okay. The delivery should come in around" – he thinks for a second – "noon. Come by around twelve thirty. We'll be done by one. If you like," he grins, "I'll find a presentation box and you can pick it up late afternoon."

"Thanks. Till tomorrow, then."

"Bye."

Castle saunters out of the jewellers perfectly happy with life, and without casting more than one – okay, two – glances over the ring tray. Just to see what's there, naturally. He does it every time. Really.

* * *

The precinct is buzzing with the Feds' lovely new tech, their actions, their abilities… Castle has never heard so much bad-mouthing outside a literary convention. The cops hate the Feds who hate the cops right back, it seems. Wow. He tries mentioning Homeland Security, and _everyone_ unites around hating them.

He follows his nose to Beckett's desk, and finds it empty. He eventually tracks her down, before her coffee has got cold, in the FBI room. Clearly she's managed to worm her way back into Agent Shaw's team. Or possibly _worm_ is the wrong word. Storm, more likely. There is a lively discussion going on, if you're feeling tactful. Castle prefers accuracy. A blazing row is underway. He opens the door, straight into Beckett's gesture, catches her wrist and puts her coffee in her hand. It has almost exactly the same soothing effect as inserting a pacifier into a screaming baby. She automatically takes a swig, then another, and calms down.

"What's the problem?"

"Shaw's gone."

And then her phone rings and it's their killer and the row is forgotten as the whole team – cops, Feds and one writer – swings into full forward momentum, with Beckett taking unquestioned charge. Castle notices with some interest that adrenaline and alpha-status overrides all of Montgomery's order of desk duty, pain, bruising and cracked ribs without a struggle, and files that for later Nikki-use.

In the thick of searching out the killer's location, Castle has entirely forgotten about finishing the watch, and it's not until he and Beckett are on stakeout duty that he remembers. He taps a quick text out to Michael, asking to delay till the following day, not tomorrow – he'll call him – and returns to the story of their killer. It's all wrong. It's too easy. Beckett listens to him, wincing occasionally as she shifts position in her seat, and – mirabile dictu! – agrees.

And then she hands him her backup piece and this is just the most amazing day _ever_ – right up until after he frees Shaw and races after Beckett and he hasn't found her when he hears the most heart-wrenchingly terrifying scream of pain and anger and fear and it's _Beckett_ and what has that fucker done to her and he slams to a halt on them, raises and fires and _fuck_ he's missed Dunn's head but _thank Christ_ he got the gun but Beckett's laid out on the floor and _what the hell_? – she's not conscious and what did that bastard Dunn _do to her_?

* * *

It's another bus, and (perhaps fortunately, Castle thinks) a different EMT in the back as it aims for the hospital. Even so, this time he isn't leaving. Beckett may be incapable of moving – they'd lifted her out on a stretcher and she hadn't even complained so _something_ is badly wrong – but that doesn't mean that she'll be particularly impressed. This time, though, she might be co-operative. Or in too much pain to be obstructive.

He puts a large, warm hand over hers, interlinking their fingers.

"Hurts…" she sighs. He tries to take his hand away, but she tightens hers around it. "Don't go away."

"Okay," he says amiably. "I'll wait with you."

"He dropped on top of me," she mumbles.

 _What the fuck?_ He will kill him. He could have snapped Beckett's neck. Castle feels sick. He's felt sick with terror for Beckett far too often in the last couple of weeks. He wants to take her home, buy out the entire stock of cotton wool from every Walgreens _and_ Duane Reed in Manhattan and wrap her in it till nothing will ever hurt her again. He knows he can't. All he can do is hold her hand and stop her trying to shoot the EMTs.

"Just stay still till the EMT looks you over." He grins, though it's more rictus than humorous. "Try not to upset this one. I've no lollipops today." She tries to grin back. It's pitifully pathetic. "At least you're not concussed again."

There's a noise that might be a growl – if it weren't so small, barely-audible, and miserable. "That the best you can manage, Castle? It could be worse?"

"It could be. Last time you were green and vomiting. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. And you were really nasty to the doctors. This time you should be nicer to them: after all, they're the ones who are trying to patch you up." Another growl, with a bit more force to it.

"Won't stay in hospital."

"That's childish, Beckett. If you need to, you will."

"Don't wanna. Don't like hospitals."

"You sound like me talking about the paperwork." _This_ growl would scare grizzlies. "That's better. C'mon, Beckett. I'm the nine-year old in this partnership. You're supposed to be the adult. If we're both nine, who's going to shoot the bad guys?"

"Esposito," Beckett flips back, and manages a reasonable grin. "Cheaper than putting them in jail."

At this fortuitous point the ambulance stops, the rest of the EMTs return, and Beckett, muttering darkly that this is all entirely unnecess – OW! – as she's removed from the bus on a gurney, is then taken into the ER. Castle considers asking a passing nurse to examine his hand, which feels as if it has been crushed, but thinks better of it. He follows Beckett – just like usual, though he'd rather prefer it was into the bullpen than the ER – and when she's put on an ER gurney repossesses himself of her hand until a doctor snaps at him to get out the way. Reluctantly, he does.

The doctor fusses over Beckett, prods her chest gently (Castle has a moment or five's violent envy: it's not _fair_ that anyone else gets to touch Beckett's really quite beautiful chest) and when she yelps nods sagely.

"You have a broken rib, possibly more than one, in addition to the two cracked ribs and bruising from – _yesterday?_ What have you been doing? Weren't you told to take care?" The doctor produces an exasperated, exaggerated harrumph. "We're going to take you into X-ray to rule out any other complications. As long as there aren't any, you won't need to be admitted. Is there someone who will be staying with you? You shouldn't do anything strenuous."

Castle can't stop his snort of mixed amusement and disbelief. "She's with me," he manages, once he recovers his breath from the doctor's uninformed naivety about Beckett's lack of need for assistance (well, in her mind, anyway) and ability to refrain from activity (of any sort).

"Good," the doctor says. "Make sure she doesn't do anything strenuous for three weeks or so." There's a squawk from the gurney. Both the doctor and Castle ignore it as being irrelevant. "Right. X-ray for you." And Beckett is rolled off.

A little while later she's brought back. Shortly after, she hasn't obviously killed the doctors, she's been given some serious pain relievers, and has acquired a dopey smile. She is delivered to Castle, who's been amusing himself by making up stories about everyone, including the staff, in the ER waiting room, (there had been a bossy nurse whose – er – colourful phraseology had given him several ideas) with a prescription for those same serious painkillers, which apparently won't interfere with the contraceptive implant. So Beckett babbles, in any event. Castle is informed that there are no complications, and instructed not to let her do anything strenuous. He decides not to inform her that she's blurting out her medical history to him and tries not to listen too carefully. He fails.

"Not that she'll want to," the doctor says. Castle knows that this is nonsense, but keeps his mouth firmly shut. He collects dopey, cute Beckett and takes her to have the prescription filled and then home. Unfortunately, the dopey cuteness wears off before they're even halfway home, to be replaced by a not-particularly well-concealed tide of annoyance at Dunn, the broken ribs, the pain she's in, and the need for some of the good drugs, stat. Castle lets it all wash over him. None of it is directed at him, none of it refers to him, and in fact he's thinking about picking up Beckett's hand again. (He really shouldn't, since he's driving her car, and in fact can't, what with all the gear shifts – why doesn't she get an automatic?) Eventually she runs down, looks vaguely sheepish, and stops.

"Sorry, Castle. I hate being injured."

"You don't say," he points out, with a heavy layer of sarcasm. "Here I thought you liked it."

Beckett snickers, winces and yelps, and stops. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts."

"Sorry. Look, we're nearly home. You can take the pills" –

"Don't like pills."

" – and then at least it won't hurt as much. I'll make dinner, and you don't need to do anything but sit comfortably" – there's a disbelieving noise – "and talk to me."

"You mean listen to you."

"That too." It being a stop light, Castle turns to her. "Look, I know you don't like the situation, but just… put up with it, okay?"

"I'm imposing," Beckett mutters.

"Yes, you are." She gasps. "In the sense that you are impressive, through accomplishments. What you aren't is an _imposition_." She snorts, and then yelps and winces again. He smirks, wiped off by the yelp. "Stop worrying, Beckett. Hakuna matata."

"What?"

"Hakuna matata. It means no worries."

"Huh?"

"The Lion King."

"Oh?"

"Disney. And a musical. Surely you knew that?"

"Oh."

"Want to go?"

"Not tonight, Josephine. I have a headache." Castle snickers.

"Shouldn't that be a rib-ache?"

"That too."

"We're home." Castle parks neatly in a free space. "Don't move till I can help you get out without too much pain." He comes round, opens the passenger door, and waits while she manoeuvres both legs out – very cautiously. "Okay. Give me your hands, and you concentrate on moving carefully and I'll take your weight."

"You saying I'm overweight, Castle?" she snarks.

"No. I could lift you up like a feather. But if I do we'll hurt your ribs – more – and this time they might keep you in hospital. Since you don't want that, just for a change do it my way."

Beckett mumbles and grumbles and does – for a change – what Castle suggests. There is a lot of Russian swearing. This does not stop when she's out the car, nor when Castle puts a gentle arm around her – purely to ensure that no-one knocks into her, of course, and he's sticking to that excuse – nor when they make it in the door. It does stop when she takes the horse-pills, but that might only be because there is a mouthful of water preventing her talking.

When she's swallowed the pills, Beckett aims, or possibly shuffles, for the stairs. She makes it to the top. Just. The Russian swearing is back.

"How can it hurt my _ribs_ to walk up some stairs?" she huffs. Castle has no idea. If he'd wanted to be a doctor, he'd have studied medicine. (He has studied anatomy, though only from the standpoint of killing people. In his books, of course.) He declines the proffered argument in favour of cooking dinner.

"Beckett, dinner's ready," he calls, a while later.

" 'Kay," flutters down the stairs, followed, creakily, by a somewhat white and strained Beckett.

"What's wrong?"

"Had a shower."

"Yes?" Castle asks suspiciously. He doesn't see why a shower should induce this look.

"I tried to wash my back and twisted and it" – there's a pause there that many profane or vulgar words would fit into – "hurts."

"I would have washed your back," he says, suggestiveness and waggling eyebrows on autopilot.

"If I'd known how much it would hurt I might have let you," Beckett mutters – and only realises that she had said that out loud when Castle sucks in a gasped breath and drops the spatula with which he's cooking.

He's two fast strides across the floor towards her before his brain catches up with his feet, and he slows up, rams his instant, instinctive reaction back into its cage, and _doesn't_ haul her against him and kiss hell out her. Instead he puts both hands gently on her shoulders, and steers her to the couch. There's a hot wash of colour delineating her cheekbones, and she's chewing her lip. Even if kissing her would sort this out, he's not going to. He'll just bring this back to banter and snark and normality…because if he doesn't he'll do something stupid and she'll be back in hospital. _Not_ a desirable outcome.

"Would you? Because I'll be happy to wash your back – or front – any time. Just say when."

"That was the painkillers talking," Beckett snips. Castle raises his eyebrows in a manner indicative of extreme cynicism and disbelief.

"If you say so," he drawls. "Dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes." And he returns to the frying pan. A small, pained sigh follows him. It carries a note of disappointment that he's certain she doesn't know is there. Beckett would never knowingly have let it escape. He stirs the mixture of beef and vegetables with a contented, smug smile. Beckett has let slip quite enough for him to be sure that she's much more interested than she'd like him to know. Shame she's far too injured to be likely to sleepwalk tonight. As soon as she moves the pain will wake her up.

Dinner is eaten with embarrassed carefulness on Beckett's part, both in movement and speech, and amiable imperturbability on Castle's part.

"Coffee, Beckett?"

"Please."

"Here, or there?" He gestures towards the couch. "The couch might be more comfortable?" He puts the coffee down by it.

" 'Kay," Beckett says, clearly out of resistance to anything and too tired to care. She creaks towards the couch: the scent of coffee providing the necessary impetus to move her over. It's possibly the only thing that might have moved her short of manhandling. Castle ensures that she has seated herself before he sits down – mostly to make sure he can help her if required (not, note, if she _asks_ ), but partly to make sure he can sit next to her. A friendly arm and some general consolation seems indicated. After all, kisses were _allowed_ yesterday.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I really appreciate hearing all your thoughts._


	4. Chapter 4

**4: Time for bed**

After Beckett has reached for her coffee, yipped with pain, and is now sitting in a frozen position which is clearly the only one which is moderately pain-free, Castle can't take it any longer. He shifts the table far closer – which he should have thought of earlier – and gets a tired, still-beautiful, genuine smile for his action.

"Thanks," she sighs.

"Still hurting?"

"Yeah. Another couple of weeks, they said."

"More painkillers?"

"Too early. I'll take them just before bedtime. That way I might get some sleep."

Castle has a thought. "Did you tell Montgomery you got beaten up again?" Beckett looks first surprised, then a little guilty.

"No, I'll tell him tomorrow when I get into the bullpen."

"What?"

"When I get into work."

"You're going to work? With broken ribs?"

"Yes. I'm on desk duty anyway, so – oh, _shit_."

"What?"

"I was supposed to be on desk duty today. Montgomery is not going to be happy with me." She starts to shrug unhappily, and stops, not quite soon enough, hissing. Castle puts a sympathetic arm around her shoulders, and pats gently.

"What's likely to happen?" he asks, and notes that Beckett either isn't objecting to or hasn't noticed the arm. He pats a little more. There's a twitch, as if she was going to shrug again and thought better of it.

"Dunno. He could extend the desk duty, he could put me on medical leave, he could suspend me for disobeying orders."

"All of which have the same outcome, really, don't they? No chasing killers." Castle smirks evilly. "Paperwork for you, Detective Beckett." She growls half-heartedly.

"I'm not sure I could chase down an arthritic snail," she humphs. "And if I did try you'd probably tell me not to."

"Yep," grins Castle. "No snail chasing. It's a very dangerous activity, snail chasing. You might get hurt."

"Do snails bite?" she says very cynically. "No? Or carry guns? Still no? Then I don't think it's likely."

"More likely you'd slip on the slime and fall flat on your face. So no snail chasing."

Beckett emits another humph.

"I can't do anything," she complains. "I can't even change position without wincing. All I can do is sit up straight or lie down flat on my back."

Castle grins lasciviously and waggles his eyebrows villainously for good measure. "Well, Beckett, I can think of several things you could do in that position…" He watches the colour wash through her face with amusement.

"If it wouldn't hurt if I tried, I'd shoot you for that."

Castle moves a preventative distance away. He wouldn't put it past Beckett to attack and only then remember that it hurts. Of course, he could kiss it better if it did…. He should have thought of that ten minutes ago. He metaphorically beats himself over the head for his own stupidity.

"You wouldn't want to shoot me, Beckett. You'd just want more."

Beckett makes a disgusted noise at his conceit but remembers not to wreak revenge on his ears or nose, much to Castle's disappointment. Another potential opportunity to kiss her gone begging.

"You are so full of it."

"Well, actually, it would be you who would be" –

"Shut up, Castle." He smirks evilly at her from a safe distance, and when she wrinkles her nose at him decides that it's not going to be instantly fatal to return. He drapes his arm back round her, resisting the urge to hug.

"What's this?" Beckett snips.

"Consolation," Castle says airily. "Comfort. Cheer. Cosiness. Care."

"Enough with the Websters recitation, Castle. Explain."

"Nope," he says. Cheerily. "Not explaining. You didn't explain to me and I'm not explaining to you. Fair's fair."

"I didn't explain what?"

"You wouldn't explain why it didn't matter that you sleepwalked into my bed. So I'm not going to explain why I'm cuddling you."

"Fine," humphs Beckett. But she hasn't pulled away (it probably hurts to move, but Castle will take that as a sign that the Universe is on his side, for once) and she hasn't told him to move away. He concludes that she likes being cuddled but won't admit it. She likes two-pump sugar free vanilla grande skim lattes, and won't admit that to him either, but she drinks them every time they appear and makes happy, sexy little noises as she does.

Some time later Castle has sneakily achieved complete contact by sliding fractions closer every time Beckett winces or he feels the need to shift a little to get comfortable. It helps that Beckett is so very tired, because she's now leaning on his arm more than he is cuddling her and Castle doesn't think it would take very much for her to lay her head on his shoulder and close her eyes. He considers – er – _encouragement_ in the form of a small amount of stroking of her hair, and on finding that to be a good plan does so.

Amazingly, it seems that Beckett has run out of desire or ability to object. Even more amazingly, her only response is simply to make a muted, contented little purr and do exactly what Castle had hoped: to wit lay her head on his shoulder, her body propped straight up against his so that she doesn't move and hurt herself, and close her eyes. It's all very…peaceful. Not quite what he'd imagined his first chance of snuggling up to Beckett might be like, but then again he hadn't exactly imagined his first opportunity of having her in his bed would be the way _that_ had been, either.

Castle daydreams happily for a little while, then looks at his watch and discovers that it's well into the evening. Looking at his watch, an expensive but discreetly tasteful Vacherin-Constantin, he also remembers that tomorrow he'd better see Michael and finish off Beckett's watch. She'll be pleased to get it back, he expects, and he'll have helped. He doesn't know _why_ it should be so important to him that he helps in the repair, rather than simply finding the pieces, taking them to Michael, and asking him to sort it at Castle's expense, but it is. He wants to do something tangible, not just throw money at the problem.

Anyway, that's for tomorrow. If it's a paperwork day – and Beckett will only have paperwork days for the next three weeks (he wonders exactly what she's going to tell Montgomery) – then he won't be expected in the bullpen, there will be no interrogation as to why he's ducking out of something interesting, and he will be able to present Beckett with her watch as a lovely surprise. Right now, he'd better work out how to – oh. How to wake Beckett up. Especially since his arm, quite without his volition, has dropped down so that his hand is resting on her waist. She's asleep, in his arm, on his couch, in his loft. It could only be better if the next place they _both_ went was his bed. Without the broken ribs.

He ponders for a moment, and then another. The second moment is definitely sheer procrastination: he likes this cuddled-up contentment and as soon as he wakes Beckett it will be gone. Eventually conscience overcomes cuddles and he pats Beckett on the cheek. It has no effect whatsoever. Then he tugs her hair, very gently. He can't wiggle her shoulder – or any of the rest of her torso – for fear of doing more damage, and he's equally scared simply to lift her up and take her to the guest room, for the same reason.

Tugging gently has the effect of Beckett's eyes half opening, and a sleep-soaked growl of general unamusement with the situation.

"Wake up, Beckett."

"Ugh."

"Wake up."

" 'S not morning."

"No, it's evening, and you need to go to bed. This is my couch, not a bed."

"Urrgh. Go 'way."

"Beckett, I always thought you'd wake up instantly. You're harder to wake than a hibernating bear."

"Not a bear." Her eyelids drop again. "You're a bear. Teddy bear."

This is not necessarily flattering. He'd rather be a tiger, or a wolf. Something a bit more – well, macho – than a teddy bear. Still, he'll show her that he's no soft toy. So to speak. Just – not now. Whatever his body thinks.

"Beckett, _wake up_!" he says firmly.

"Am awake. Whatisit?"

"It's time you went to bed. You've been asleep on my shoulder for half an hour. You're drooling, and my shirt's getting soggy." That's a total lie.

"What? Drooling? Asleep?" That's much more like it. Beckett's instinctive snap of response, firmly in position. "I don't believe you."

"You were definitely asleep."

"Oh."

"It was really interesting. You don't look ferocious at all when you're asleep. More – cute."

"Cute? _Cute?_ " Seems like that's really woken her up. "I am not _cute_. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. Small children are very occasionally cute, from a safe distance. I am _not_ cute."

"Am I cute?" Castle asks provocatively.

There's a stunned pause. He doesn't _do_ this, but today he can because kisses were _allowed_ and hugs were _allowed_ and Kate Beckett sleepwalked (sleptwalked?) into his bed. And she's not answering and she's blushing (again) and she looks so adorably flustered that he's hard put not to laugh. Or kiss her. Or both.

"Stunned into silence by my rugged handsomeness, hmm?"

"It's certainly not by your modesty, Castle."

"So it is my rugged good looks, then."

"What?"

"You just said so."

"I didn't."

"You did." Castle assumes an expression of smug superiority. "I knew you liked me."

"I'm going to bed," Beckett humphs. Castle very nearly says _Whose bed?_ , but manages to stop the words before they exit his mouth as an immediate predecessor to life exiting his body. He detaches his arm from Beckett's shoulders and stands up, carefully so as not to bounce the couch and hurt Beckett.

He extends both hands. "Come on, then. I'll help you stand up." There's a tiny hesitation, then she puts her own hands into his and waits. "I'll do the lifting. You just concentrate on moving in a way that doesn't hurt. Too much," he hastily adds at her glare. She shifts, and winces.

"Okay, change of plan. Don't move."

"How am I supposed to stand – what are you doing?"

Castle has simply leaned down, taken a firm grip around her waist _below_ any ribs that might be broken or otherwise damaged, and lifted her up smoothly without Beckett doing anything at all.

"There," he says smugly. "All done. Told you I could lift you without any trouble."

Beckett's mouth is opening and shutting without any words or indeed sound emerging, rather like a stranded goldfish. "Thank you," finally emerges, in a strangulated noise best described as a _glurp_. She doesn't seem to know what to do with herself or her hands, which are currently resting on Castle's shoulders.

Castle, on the other hand, knows exactly what to do with his hands: leave them exactly where they are on Beckett's slim waist, possibly tightening them a little just to ensure she doesn't run away yet. In fact – he steps the tiny distance closer that tucks her against him while keeping her straight and unhurt – he could usefully put one hand right round her waist and the other at the back of her neck, and then it would be even more sensible to run that hand up into her hair, which is delightfully soft and strokable… and now he has a problem. Well, two problems.

Problem one is that Beckett is now in the perfect position to be kissed or to be held comfortingly against him and petted consolingly. Decisions, decisions. Or maybe he could do both? Problem two is that any second now she'll notice just how much Castle likes having her tucked against him, and it's only too likely that she'll object. It would be nice if she didn't, but he's never been that lucky up till now and he doesn't think that's about to change.

Oh well. He's taken so many chances in the last few hours that one more won't matter. He curves his hand round the base of her skull and tips her head up while holding the rest of her still and drops a careful, delicate and undemanding kiss on her lips.

She tastes of coffee and desire and ambrosia. One small taste and he is instantly, permanently addicted. So he kisses her again because he can't face the thought that he might only ever get this one chance to kiss her and only have done so _once_ but astonishingly the seam of her soft lips has opened to him and she's teasing him to open up for her.

 _This_ kiss is not careful, delicate or undemanding. This kiss carries all his – and, it seems, all _her_ – pent-up desire, frustration, terror and need: all surging up under the breaking strain of the last three or four days. This kiss is life-changing, life-affirming.

And this kiss _has to stop_. If it doesn't stop _right now_ , it won't stop till both of them are naked in bed and that is still a _very bad_ idea because she is hurt. But he wishes very strongly that he had never given in to the temptation to kiss her at all because she won't be mended for two or three weeks and he may not survive that long.

Fortunately it appears that Beckett has drawn the same conclusions that he has. Her hands have dropped from his neck and she's stopped invading his mouth as he has stopped invading hers.

"We shouldn't," she murmurs. But she isn't moving away.

"We should," Castle contradicts, "but not when you have broken ribs." Since she hasn't moved away in the slightest, he strokes her hair softly to point his moral. She is conspicuously not disagreeing with him now.

"I should go to bed." Not that she seems to be doing that either.

"You should." But he doesn't stop petting, and he doesn't let go. He does loosen his arms, marginally, but Beckett doesn't take advantage of that to step back. "You should," he says again, and this time does drop his hands.

"Yeah," she agrees, and takes a cautious step towards the stairs, leaving Castle watching her as she creaks upstairs, so different from her normal, fast, fluid strides.

* * *

Castle is softly snoring in his bed when he's woken by a small noise. His bleary gaze at the clock tells him it's two a.m. His bleary brain tells him that there shouldn't be small noises in his bed that aren't him. When he turns over, he finds that it's a sleeping Beckett. That's okay then. He snuggles up to her and re-closes his eyes.

A sleeping Beckett? How did this happen without him noticing? He prods her to see if she's real, and/or really asleep.

"Ow! Ow, ow, owwww. Don't do that, Castle."

"You're awake."

"Yeah. Someone jabbed me in the ribs and woke me."

"You're _here_. Why are you here?" There's an unintelligible mutter. "Say again?" More muttering. "C'mon, why? You can't possibly have designs on my gorgeously sculpted" – there's a rude noise – "body with broken ribs, I don't think you were sleepwalking this time for the same reason, so why are you in my bed?"

"I…"

"Mmmm?"

"I… I-kept-thinking-about-it-and-you-saved-my-life-and-I-needed-you-there-so-I-could-sleep." Uh? That's complicated. He can't cope with complicated when he's still mostly asleep. He takes the easy route.

"Okay. Here I am. Snuggle in and go to sleep." A slim hand creeps into his.

"Can't snuggle," she yawns. "It hurts. This'll do for now." Her fingers close around his hand. It feels very nice. Natural. And it could only have been any more arousing if her fingers had closed around somewhere else. His fingers fold over her hand in return. Shortly, both hands are limp and there's no noise except the soft sounds of sleep and an occasional _ouch_ when Beckett tries to move and wakes herself with the consequent wince.

* * *

In the morning Beckett's hand is no longer in his. This appears to be because his hand has, entirely without his knowledge, betaken itself off to rest on Beckett's stomach. At least, even in sleep, he hasn't wrapped himself around her and cuddled her in tightly. He wonders vaguely how he managed to exert self-control in sleep, when it's so very hard to do so when he's awake. Maybe his subconscious has more morals than his conscious mind.

He's about to drift back to sleep when he realises that the reason he's awake at all is that Beckett is waking up.

"Where ya goin'," he slurs. "Stay here with me."

"Work."

"Oh. 'Kay." He closes his eyes again as she extracts herself very carefully from the bed. Then he slams them open. Beckett spent the whole night (well, nearly) in his bed, holding his hand, and admitting she needed him – and he's sleeping when she's waking up? No, no, no. He sits up and peers at the very pretty sight of Beckett in – ooohhhh – a silky sleep tee and shorts. She must have bought those. He doesn't remember them in the dry-cleaning/salvageable pile. "Breakfast?"

"I don't want to be any trouble."

"No trouble. Everyone has breakfast here."

Beckett glances at her wrist in what's clearly a habitual gesture and makes a noise that starts as annoyance and finishes in misery.

"What time is it?" she asks, looking around for some form of clock and failing to spot the one on Castle's nightstand, mainly because Castle himself is in the way.

"Quarter to six."

"I don't have time. I need to get in before Montgomery and I need a shower and to dress and that's all going to take too long because – _ow!_ – it hurts to move." She doesn't mention the automatic look at her wrist. The absence is very telling.

"Okay," says Castle, a little disappointed. "Did you say paperwork all day?"

"If I'm even allowed in the precinct after Montgomery's finished with me."

"Let me know," he says, casually, as if it's not important.

" 'Kay," drifts back from Beckett's route to the upstairs bathroom, followed by a sharp breath indicative of an incautious movement. With astonishing self-control and not-at-all astonishing reluctance, Castle doesn't follow. Instead he wanders off to the kitchen and, since he has plenty of time, mixes up pancake batter for whoever might want breakfast, a little later. Alexis is bound to want something. His mother – well. He checks the fridge for tomato juice.

When she comes back down, washed and dressed and clearly in a hurry, Beckett still sidles over to Castle. "You got my clothes," she says gratefully. "More than I thought had been saved. Thank you." And to his further astonishment – he'll be permanently astonished, at this rate: Mr Astonished, with his brows glued to the ceiling and jaw to the floor – she plants a brief, embarrassed, kiss on his cheek and departs, blushing furiously. He's still patting the spot when his teen-girl brain squealing of _she kissed me she kissed me_ is silenced by the fuss and bustle of an ordinary morning with his redheads wanting breakfast and chattering and generally killing his love-struck mood.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers, and to everyone who has told me about New Orleans._


	5. Chapter 5

**5: Time after time**

It's too early to descend upon Michael – he doesn't open till nearer ten, although Castle supposes the workshop opens earlier and therefore sends a hopeful text to ask – so Castle repairs to his office, pretends to write and spends some happily focused time thinking about Beckett, kisses, and bed. He thinks he's worked out why she wasn't worried about sleepwalking into his bed now – she knew he'd be careful of her, and she wants to – _finally finally finally!_ – move this on to a different footing. He wafts off into a happily contented daydream of cuddly Beckett until her ribs heal – three weeks? He'll be a wreck, though if he's going to be wrecked so will she be – and then a rather differently close-held Beckett. Only the ting of his phone breaks him out of his reveries.

It's Michael, telling him to come by around ten. That would be in about forty minutes, then, and it'll take him twenty-some of those minutes to get there. He pulls himself together and whisks through washing and shaving, by which time it's really time to get going.

The final few pieces of watch are neatly arranged on a dull green cloth when Castle is admitted to the workshop. He looks at them worriedly. This seems complicated, and the tools are very tiny set against his broad hands and large fingers.

"What do I do?" he asks plaintively.

"Only what I tell you to do. Don't worry, Rick. I won't let you make a mistake or mess this up. Just listen, and don't rush anything."

"Okay," he says nervously.

"We're going to start with the face." Castle listens very attentively and does exactly as he is told without a single deviation. The tools are tiny in his hands, and his concentration is absolute. "Good. Now the hands. See this little point?" Michael points.

"Mmmmphm."

"Put them on, very gently. If you over-tighten it will break." Castle complies, as if he were placing soap bubbles. "Good." Michael smiles. "For all those broad fingers of yours, Rick, you're not bad at this. If you ever want a new career…"

"No thanks. I'll stick to writing."

"Okay, then." Michael shrugs. "Last part – the glass."

The glass is safely installed and Castle puts down the tools with a sigh of considerable relief. Michael fusses with the watch for a few minutes, polishing with a soft cloth till it's completely clean.

"Now, Rick, you need a strap. What did it have before?"

Castle thinks. He's seen that watch on Beckett's wrist every single day he's followed her… "Definitely leather, not metal," he says, trying to conjure up the picture. "Mmmm – dark brown, smooth. Not a snakeskin, or a colour."

"Do you want the same?"

"Yes. I want it to be just like it was. It means so much to her."

Michael casts him a piercing glance and, as before, declines to comment. He doesn't really need to. Castle can read his silence like a book. Well, Michael's curiosity will have to go unsatisfied. Castle intends to hold this very new, fragile, delicate, about-to-be a relationship close to his chest (like Beckett, he thinks, which is entirely unhelpful) for some time to come. Let the seedling grow proper roots, before tugging it.

"I'll get you a box."

Michael returns with a watch-box and a dark brown – nearly black – leather strap, which he rapidly fits to the correct points. The watch safely stowed in its box, Castle tucks it into a pocket, settles up with Michael, casts a casual glance over the display cases and, despite Michael's urgings to look more closely at this, that and some other pieces of expensive prettiness, manages to escape his clutches without adding further to the shop's monetary profits but leaving Michael even richer in profuse thanks.

It takes him until he returns home and wonders why he hasn't heard from Beckett for Castle to remember that he switched his phone to silent so that it wouldn't disturb him at an inopportune moment. He finds a single missed call, and then a text. _Medical leave. M not happy with me._ It's timed at nine-thirty or so, and it's now close to noon. Castle puts the watch in its box safely in his office, investigates the loft, and finds no Becketts but only a neat note near the coffee machine. _Came back, gone to see real estate agent._ Oh. That's… depressing.

His good mood rather gone, Castle makes himself a consolatory coffee and is around halfway through it when the outer door opens slowly and Beckett inches through it, carrying a squishy-looking bag and appearing tired, fretful and pale. Castle relieves her of the bag, which squashes in a very interesting manner that he is unable to investigate, and steers her to the couch, putting the bag down close by. She stands, looking exhaustedly at it, clearly trying to work out the least painful method of sitting down. Castle solves the instant problem by putting both hands on her waist, at which point Beckett folds at the knees and is safely lowered on to the cushions.

"That was pointless," she says with some irritation. "Not a single suitable property in Manhattan from any of the agents I went to see. What am I going to do?"

"Stay here," Castle says with rather more happiness than is perhaps appreciated by Beckett.

"I can't do that for ever, Castle. You've done so much already and I can't keep imposing on you like this."

"Beckett, it's been three _days_. My mother's been here for thirteen _years_. Trust me, you're not an imposition." He grins evilly at her. "You don't even seem to need a bed." She growls. "Too soon?"

"Yeah. Anyway, I got nowhere to go. How can there not be _any_ rentals in the whole of Manhattan?" She grins back, ruefully. "Looks like you're stuck with me for a day or two yet."

"That's okay, Beckett. You can stay as long as you need. Have some coffee."

"Thanks."

Castle makes more coffee and comes to sit next to Beckett, placing a comforting arm around her and metaphorically crossing his fingers that she won't object. She doesn't. She doesn't move in, either, but that can be put down to her inability to move easily.

"How'd it go with Montgomery?"

Beckett cringes.

"Could've been better," she starts. "He…wasn't at all happy I'd gone out with the Feds – though he was less unhappy when I said that I was in charge of the situation and they did what I told them – and he got really unhappy when I told him that my ribs got broken." She starts something that looks like a guilty squirm, and stops hurriedly. "I – er – didn't get into details. Then he put me on medical leave for a week. Said that if I couldn't obey a simple order like sticking to desk duty when hurt he'd make sure I couldn't get more hurt. So here I am. Again." She makes a face. "Hope you didn't want to charge me rent. It's _unpaid_ leave."

Castle snorts. "Charge you rent? Not likely. I'll take it in trade, though." Beckett emits a noise that would scare tyrannosaurs out their senses. If they had senses. He rapidly carries on. "If you give Alexis sensible advice you can stay for as long as you need."

"Huh?"

"C'mon. You know my mother. D'you think I really want my mother's – er – _unique_ view of life and how to deal with it being the only female role model she sees?" He drifts off the original track. "Come to think of it, Alexis should see Lanie working, too. That would help. Maybe Lanie would let Alexis shadow her for a while."

"Doesn't Alexis have school?"

"Oh. Yeah. I suppose that would be a bit of a problem." He smiles happily. "See, you're being useful again." The idea has clearly captured his mind, though. "Maybe in vacation." And then his mind escapes again. "Anyway. Did you get lunch?"

"No. I just got some stuff and came back."

"Stuff?"

"Replacement clothes," she says wearily. It sounds very much as if even shopping for the necessities – he's sure it's only necessities – has tired her.

"Take a couple of painkillers, and I'll make lunch." Castle helps her stand, but fails to let go and compounds his sin by wrapping Beckett tidily into his arms. Well, she fits there very neatly and he does like having a tidy home. (His desk is often a whole other matter.)

"This is making lunch?"

"No, this is self-indulgence. I forgot to buy chocolate ice-cream."

"I'm a substitute for _ice-cream_?"

Castle opens his mouth on a reply that centres around the word _lick_ but rapidly thinks better of it when he sees the fire rising in Beckett's suddenly-steely eyes.

"Um… what would you like for lunch?"

"Not ribs. I've had enough of ribs for the next few weeks. Or years."

Castle grins in appreciation. "Sandwiches," is all he says. "I think there's some soda, too. Or milk."

"Milk?"

"Calcium. Mend all those broken bones." He smirks. Beckett growls. It's rather spoilt by the fact that she's still in his grasp, and either hasn't noticed or isn't objecting.

"My diet is perfectly well-balanced."

"Your diet is one hundred percent takeout."

"But balanced. How do you think I'd be able to do my job if I wasn't fully fit?"

"Sheer force of will," Castle says mischievously. "Mind over matter." He takes a preventative grip of her arms, just in case. "Anyway, that's irrelevant. You're not fit. You're on medical leave, and apart from anything else you've got broken ribs and probably lots of bruises and cuts." He has a happy thought. "You should put lotions on those. Or embrocations. I could rub them in for you. Very gently, of course. I took a massage course once."

"No." Castle pulls on a pleading, puppyish look and widens his eyes. It doesn't work. "Absolutely not. You're just trying to get a look at me nearly naked."

"Another one," he lets slip. Ooops.

"I _knew_ you peeked!" Beckett squawks. "You…you…voyeur!"

"That is such a hot word," Castle says unhelpfully. "It just slides over the tongue, slickly."

"That is _not_ the point. You said you wouldn't look!"

Castle notices that while Beckett is berating him for voyeurism she is not beating him about the head and nor is she extricating herself from his arms. It seems that that thought has not occurred to her. He takes shameless advantage of her lapse and moves closer: all two inches of available space that used to be between them now gone.

"But it was such a pretty sight," he says insinuatingly. "How could I resist? Just like you couldn't resist sneaking into my bed last night."

"That's entirely different," Beckett says crossly. Castle raises an eyebrow at her. "It is." His other eyebrow rises. "I wasn't ogling your naked body."

"I wouldn't have minded if you were. Anyway, you sneaked into my bed twice."

"I was _sleepwalking_. Hardly sneaking."

"You still ended up draped all over my naked chest. I'm sure some ogling was involved."

"I was _asleep_. What part of asleep don't you get?"

"The bit where you said it didn't matter that you'd sleepwalked into _my_ bed but any other bed would have been a problem." Admittedly, that doesn't exactly follow logically. But Beckett is delightfully flustered and still locked in his arms, so she might not notice. " _I_ think it matters a lot," he adds annoyingly. " _I_ think you should explain."

"I think I'm hungry," Beckett deflects. "You promised me lunch. Sandwiches."

"Deal. I'll provide sandwiches if you provide explanations. Why's sneaking into my bed not important?"

She looks up, sharply, as if he's said something stupid, then looks down again. At that point she realises that looking down is restricted to Castle's shoulder since she's held close to him. She sighs.

"I'm tired." She looks and sounds it, again.

Castle decides to stop teasing, fun as it is, walks her back to the couch and sits her down again. "You stay there. Please?" he adds as she starts to growl. "I'll make lunch."

"I thought you were blackmailing me with the sandwiches." Castle turns back, surprised.

"Not when you're tired. You need fed." He grins mischievously. "After all, if you're that tired you might fall asleep again. Who knows where you'd end up if you went wandering in your sleep."

Sandwiches duly appear, with soda. Castle sits down far closer to Beckett than he'd ever have dared a week ago, doesn't get shot or maimed, polishes off his lunch in extremely short order and thereby frees up his hands to put an arm around her. Purely to hold her up straight, of course. To stop her slumping with tiredness and hurting her ribs. Of course. And being tucked against her – or her against him – had nothing to do with it at all.

Of course it didn't have nothing to do with it. It had everything to do with it. Beckett tucked beside him is just plain perfect. He wriggles into the ideal alignment, and waits happily till Beckett finishes eating.

Finishing eating does not appear to translate to finishing her sandwich. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She wrinkles her nose disgustedly. "How can doing hardly anything make me this tired?"

"Well… you did crack your ribs three days ago, follow it up by breaking them, get blown up and then beaten up and have to go to ER both times, so you're probably tired because you're healing. Take the painkillers you were going to take a little while ago." He glances at her unobtrusively. "I'll go get them. You stay here."

" 'Kay." As he makes for the stairs he thinks he hears _don't wanna move_. Can't move might be more accurate, but then when has Beckett ever admitted she _can't_ do anything?

She takes two painkillers and is reinserted into the curve of his arm. This time, unfortunately, she notices.

"What are you doing, Castle?"

"Don't you know what a hug is?"

Beckett rolls her eyes. "Sure I do."

"Then you should know what I'm doing. Hugging you."

"Why?"

"Hugs cure everything."

"I prefer Advil."

"Ouch." Castle fake winces, only too glad to see a little bit of Beckett back, even if it is snark. "After I've fed you sandwiches – well, half a sandwich – and painkillers, too." He smirks. "And after you kissed me. If you're going to kiss me without any provocation at all then I'm going to hug you. Fair's fair, Beckett."

"It's entirely different" – He doesn't let her finish that sentence.

"Okay, I'll make it fair."

He turns just a little towards her, bends his head and kisses her. It's just his good luck that her lips were opening on an irritated protest at his words. He doesn't even _try_ to stop his unopposed invasion: exploring and then devouring; the same heavenly taste as last night; the same instant, raging fire. His hand slips into her hair, his mouth moves on hers as her hand rises to grip his shoulder and he holds her body still so that she can't shift and be hurt. The easiest way to do that, his desire-fogged brain tells him, is to lift her on to his lap in one single smooth movement. So he slides one arm under her knees and clamps one around her shoulders and does precisely that, settling Beckett very gently against him and then repossessing her mouth without a hitch. Or even a hint of a wince, for that matter.

Eventually, some time around a hundred years later, he stops kissing her, very reluctantly. Beckett seems equally reluctant to stop, which is both reassuring and fortunate. Even with broken ribs Castle is pretty sure she could kill him without difficulty. Instead she's nicely positioned in his lap (he'd say comfortably, but he's really not very comfortable at all) and has lain her head on his shoulder, nuzzled into his neck, and is very nearly purring.

Stroking her would be a really, really stupid idea. Keeping her cuddled close would be a much better plan. Yells of pain are not what he wants to hear from Beckett. Other yells, now… Which thought does nothing for his comfort level at all. He exerts amazing self-discipline and simply cuddles her. Well, with the occasional stroke of her hair. He's not _that_ self-disciplined.

"Now we're even," he says.

"Even?" Beckett hums.

"You kissed me. I kissed you. Even."

"Are you keeping _score_?" Hum has changed to forcefulness.

"Yep," Castle says annoyingly. "Otherwise you'll cheat."

"Cheat? I never cheat!" Her voice is rising. Amusing as this is, if she takes a deep breath she will be in agony.

"Okay, you don't cheat. But you do take advantage of me."

"Anything less like a Victorian virgin than you would be difficult to find, Castle. How am I taking advantage of you?" Castle pounces on her mistake like a starved wolf on a dead horse.

"We could start with you sneaking into my bed. Twice. And kissing me. Twice."

"You are obsessed with me sneaking into your bed. I did _not_ sneak. I sleepwalked."

"The first time, maybe," Castle says, with a fine air of disbelief, "so you said. The second time you sneaked. And I notice you're not mentioning the kisses."

Beckett says nothing, for a moment, gulping like a goldfish.

"I did sleepwalk," she says indignantly.

"And then you sneaked."

"Will you shut up about the sneaking? You know why" – she stops, abruptly.

"So why didn't the sleepwalking matter?" This does not produce an instant response. "C'mon. If you're going to sleep in my bed" – he only just avoids the words _sleep with me_ , since they haven't yet slept together though he really, really hopes that it's not far off – "you can at least explain _why_ you sleepwalked into my bed."

"I don't know." Castle considers what he has just asked, recognises his mistake and that Beckett has taken full advantage of it, and rephrases.

"Why didn't it matter that you sleepwalked into my bed?"

"Are we back to this again?"

"Yes."

"I'm not in Interrogation."

"No, but you are arrested."

"I am not."

"Yes, you are. Arrest means _stop_ , and you are quite definitely at a stop. You can't move unless I let go and probably help you move." He grins very smugly. "You're stuck. You don't get to move unless you answer my very reasonable question."

"Blackmail is very unbecoming, Castle."

"Unbecoming? Who's behaving like a Victorian virgin now? And anyway, it's not blackmail. Merely using the advantages I've got." Unbelievably, he musters another layer of irritating smugness. He's managed a new high score on the smugometer. He'll mark that on his calendar. "Besides which, you like it here. And I like you here." He thinks for a second. "But I like you even better in my bed."

There's a furious growl in his ear. Success. Now if he can only annoy her a little more she'll lose her temper and then he'll get the answer. Perfect.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Much appreciated._


	6. Chapter 6

**6: Time flies**

"You can keep sneaking into my bed as often as you like, Beckett. We could start now."

"For the third time, I didn't _sneak_. I sleepwalked."

"Don't believe you," he singsongs. "I think you sneaked both times."

"I did not. I sleepwalked. It was just because I had a nightmare" – she slams her mouth closed on the confession.

"Nightmare? You said you hadn't sleepwalked much since before you went to school – I thought you meant grade school."

"I did." Castle notices that she's not exactly explaining what triggered _not much_.

"Oh. What nightmare, then?" There's a defeated, unhappy pause. "C'mon, Beckett. I've _seen_ you taking down the bad guys. I'm not going to judge. Everyone has bad dreams. I do. I dream about writing bad romance novels and being trashed by the critics. Of course, I also dream about being eaten by flesh-devouring zombies and about winning a Pulitzer when naked, so you could argue that I should stop eating cheese late at night…" He trails off. His particular brand of Beckett-baiting insanity isn't cheering her up any.

"Kate?" He never calls her Kate, but she's suddenly tense and sad and he's pushed her too far _again_ but he'd only been teasing: if he'd thought she'd react like this he'd have stopped. "Kate, it's okay. You don't have to say anything." She curls into him, and he automatically holds her in closer.

"It didn't matter if it was you because I couldn't hurt you," she stutters out into his neck. _Say what_ , Beckett?

"Hurt me?" Castle pets her hair and, since it's there, her cheek. "You can't hurt me, Beckett." His tone is deliberately provocative.

"I could kill you with my bare hands." Better. Back to better Beckett, anyway. "But not when I'm asleep." There's a pause in the flow. "But…"

"Mmmmm?"

"But I dreamed that the killer was in front of me and I was burning and I just went after him because that would stop the burning and I had my hands around his neck and I squeezed and he _died_ – I _killed_ him – and it was _so fucking real_ , Castle. So real, and what if that had been whoever I could have sleepwalked into? If it had been anyone else and I'd done it for real?" She burrows her face into his neck.

"Don't be silly," Castle says briskly. He has a plan, and it doesn't involve Beckett self-flagellating for completely ridiculous reasons, or indeed any reasons. Quite unnecessary. "Dreams aren't reality. You're over-stressed by the whole situation and you've made a mountain out of a worm cast."

"Molehill."

"No, it's not even that big. Worm cast. Best-selling writer here, and I know exactly what metaphor I want." He pets a little more, and keeps the brisk tone. "No way would you have hurt anyone. Not even me. It was just a dream, and no matter what you think you're doing in dreams you aren't doing it."

" 's not true. People do violent things when they're sleepwalking."

"They're already ill. You're not. Are you?"

"No." That carries considerable indignation. Good.

"Well then. And you wouldn't have done violent things to my mother or Alexis. You're a cop. And if you haven't murdered me, you're not going to murder my family. You're being silly, Beckett." He pets yet more. "So stop hiding in my ruggedly handsome neck. It can't be helping your ribs."

Nothing happens.

"Beckett," he wheedles, "come out. I've got a lollipop for you."

"Liar." But her head has lifted and she's looking at him, slightly uncertainly, it is true, but looking at him. He never refuses when opportunity knocks.

"Yes," he says amiably, "but now you've come out just in case I do." He smiles beautifully at her. "Good."

"Good?"

"I can do this." And he kisses her again, softly and briefly. "Can't do that if you're buried in my neck."

"I could go back there. Or to my room."

"Or to mine," Castle says hopefully and _very_ provocatively. "I like you in my room." Beckett is back to gulping like a goldfish. Good. Silly girl, thinking she'd hurt someone. Beckett, supercop par excellence, who only ever tries to _fix_ people's hurts? How dumb can she be?

"Your room would have you in it."

"That's its main attraction. You said so."

"What?"

"You said you needed me. So since I sleep in my own room, just like I've done since we could afford separate rooms" – oops, that made Beckett jerk, and the swearing in his ear means she's hurt herself.

"You couldn't afford separate rooms?"

"When I was small. Before Mother got a bit more successful." He doesn't say – before I got successful. His mother had managed that herself, later on, before he had become a superstar.

"Oh. Right."

" – I sleep in my own room, Beckett, so you'll just need to sleep there too."

He starts counting seconds. He gets to _three_ , which is two further than he'd expected, before that sinks in.

" _What_? I'll just need to sleep in your room? What makes you think I'll be doing anything like that?"

"You did last night. And the night before. And before that you were in hospital and you wanted me to stay till you were nearly asleep. So, Beckett" – he waggles his eyebrows lasciviously – "I'd say you want to sleep in my room. In my bed. With me, in fact." He adds a wolfish smile. "I really don't mind that at all."

"I'm sure you don't." But, Castle notices, she hasn't (yet) said that she _does_ mind. He smiles to himself, and says nothing more on that subject. He strongly suspects that if he simply leaves it alone now, some time tonight Beckett will appear in his bed again. Since that's what he wants, and he thinks that's what she wants, that's just fine.

"What did you buy?"

"Are you trying to give me whiplash as well as broken ribs?"

"I didn't give you broken ribs. How am I giving you whiplash?"

"You switched the subject so fast my neck is still catching up with the change of direction."

"Protecting my assets, Beckett. I thought you were about to shoot me. So what did you buy?"

"Stuff," Beckett says uninformatively.

"Not very descriptive, Beckett. You'll need to do better than that."

"You're the writer, not me. Stuff."

"What sort of stuff? Pretty stuff? Foodstuffs? Apparel?"

"Apparel? What's wrong with saying clothes?"

"Boring."

"Yes, clothes. Boring, ordinary clothes."

"Show me?"

"You'll see them when I wear them." Castle makes a very sad face at Beckett. "What?" she snips.

"I want to see now. Pleeeeease?"

"No."

"Aw, Beckett. You're no fun. Not even a little peek?"

"No."

"Okay," he says sadly, and droops. His arms fall away from her. This means that his hand lands on the bag, lifts it up, and dumps the contents on the couch. His eyes light up. "Ooooohhhh, _Beckett_."

"Give me those back."

Castle doesn't, and compounds his disgraceful conduct by wrapping his arms back round Beckett.

"They're pretty. Not boring at all." He twinkles at her. "I like them. Will you model them for me?"

"No."

"Pleeeeease?"

"No."

"Beckett, that's not fair. I've never seen you in shorts and a tank top. Is that your workout garb? Or do you wear it when you're relaxing on your own?"

"Running. I can't go running so you won't see them."

Castle makes a face at her. "You'll be better soon. Then I'll see them." His mind flitters off. "What else did you get?"

"Nothing you need to know about." Beckett looks crossly at him. "Put it all back in the bag, please."

Castle complies, and manages not to tip out the contents of some more interestingly squishy and much smaller bags. His fingers tell him that there is underwiring. His brain tells him they're full of underwear. His body tells him several things he should do about that but he's just about managing not to listen to it. Beckett is still on his lap and still within the loose circle of his arms and still not killing him, and he's not going to spoil that.

"What do you want to do?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you can't go to the precinct because you've been banned."

"I wasn't banned. I'm on medical suspension."

"Like I said. Banned for misbehaviour. Catching killers when you were supposed to be sitting still and not annoying the Feds." Beckett growls. "So what shall we do? We could braid your hair, or paint your nails, or make out a little more, or a lot more – _ow_!"

"Shut up, Castle." Beckett removes her nails from his ear.

"Beckett," Castle says in tones composed equally of sweet reason and provocative patronage, "you are sitting on my lap. In which alternate universe _shouldn't_ we be making out?"

"All of them," she snipes.

"Well, it's just as well we're not in any of them, then." Castle runs his hand back up into Beckett's hair and tips her head to an accessible angle. "Kiss me, Kate," he murmurs, and prevents her doing so even had she tried by kissing her first.

She might have been snipping and sniping and possibly snapping at him, but she's not even pretending to try to move away. Anything but. Castle deduces that Beckett is quite happy to make out a little more. He certainly is. He's quite happy to make out a little more for a lot longer. He'd be quite happy to make out a lot more for a lot longer, too. His free hand drops to her leg, hers is locked in the hair on the back of his head. His arm supports her in a position that doesn't appear to hurt. Their kiss deepens: Castle demands entry, Beckett presses her own demands upon his lips. His hand slips higher above her knee; he moves round to nibble delicately on her ear, tease her neck, and return to repossess her mouth.

Matters are rapidly getting out of control. Neither Beckett or Castle seems to care, rapidly descending into the same scorching hot, unstoppable sink of desire that their first real kiss had brought. Her free hand is knotted in his shirt front, her fingers on the buttons and beginning to release them, his continues to rise on her leg, over her hip; his arm still supporting her as his fingers trail across to the button of her pants, pausing on the waistband, waiting for some indication of how far she wants to go.

It becomes instantly obvious that the answer is _much further_ when all his shirt buttons fall open and a delicately seductive hand trails inside the cotton and starts to play, flirting lower and lower. The only question is _how_ much further they can go without this all imploding in broken ribs and general suffering – not just Beckett's. It doesn't stop him undoing in his turn, tracing the rim of her pants and pushing them just a little open, sliding one strong finger into the gap, teasing just a little…

And then pulling back, stopping, returning his hand to the relatively safe zone of her hipbone: still kissing but trying to damp the fire down. Her hands are still inside his shirt, but she, too, has stopped teasing. Her hands are still and peaceful, flat against his chest.

"We need to be…careful, Beckett," Castle murmurs, after a long, calming pause. "You're injured. I don't want to break you any more than you already managed on your own."

"I didn't break me," Beckett says indignantly. "Dunn fell on me. Hardly my fault."

"If you'd stayed on desk duty rather than bullying the Feds…" Castle replies very provocatively.

"We wouldn't have saved Shaw." This is very true. Castle subsides, playing idly with a wisp of Beckett's hair and sliding a gentle hand from hip to waist and down again, soothingly.

"But you wouldn't be so badly hurt." It slips out.

"Saving her was more important. My ribs will mend. Death's permanent." It's as black and white as Beckett always is: no room for moral equivalencies there.

Castle leaves it. He's never going to change Beckett's spun-steel core, and he doesn't want to – he just wants Beckett not to be killed herself. He carries on playing with her hair, cosseting her on his lap, simply… taking care of her in a comfortably affectionate, unobtrusive way to which she is – amazingly – not objecting. Her stiffness is a consequence of her injuries, not discomfort with her position; and her head has dropped back on to his wide shoulder to lie conveniently tucked into the hollow of his neck. Her necessarily shallow breathing whiffles against him, not quite tickling. His arms lie still around her, no pressure, just lightweight support.

Eventually the peaceful space of time has to end.

"I should put my stuff away," Beckett yawns. "Help me stand up, Castle?"

"Huh?"

"Moving hurts. You picking me up hurts less. Please would you stand me up so it doesn't hurt as much?" Castle boggles at her, and fails to move from stunned paralysis. "Castle, _please_ will you stop staring like a stunned sow and help me stand up?"

He starts. Beckett squawks. "Sorry, sorry, sorry." He lifts her from his lap and sets her on her feet, slowly letting go of her waist. She looks as if she wants to stretch out, and stops.

"I can't even stretch," she grumps. "I hate this. No home, no job to do, and my ribs hurt every time I move or breathe."

"This is why you should invest in a space in a cryo facility, Beckett. You could be put into cryosleep for three weeks and when you woke up you'd be all better. No pain, no boredom." He grins. "Of course, you wouldn't be able to talk to me, which would be a major downside for you, but" –

" _I_ would be _asleep_ , Castle. _You_ would have no-one to distract with your incessant persiflage." She grins nastily. "Actually, you might have a point about the advantages of cryosleep. Peace, quiet, no chatter, no pain…"

Castle makes a sulkily disappointed noise to preserve the normal formalities, while noting that Beckett has re-acquired her colour and personality since he'd fed her lunch and cuddled her up peacefully. Or kissed her, not so peacefully. His errant mind wanders to whether, if she reappears in his bed tonight, he couldn't work out a way of making them both very, very happy without risking unpleasant consequences. He's sure there ought to be a way. He just has to think about it.

While he's been pondering Beckett has made it as far as the stairs and is crabbing her way up them with a minimum of grace and a maximum of (very hot, but disturbingly intense) Russian swearing. The one understandable piece of speech, once he strips out the extensive covering of profanity in two languages, seems to amount to _how does this hurt so much more a couple of days after_? He has no idea, and is not planning to find out if it's true by experimenting.

He tidies up the lunch utensils and wanders off to his office to make a few notes about Nikki, injuries, and watch-repair – all of which is abruptly halted when he notices the watch in the presentation box on his desk where he'd left it. He'd forgotten to give it to Beckett. He thinks for a moment. He is fairly sure that Beckett wants to attend to her new clothes without company, and possibly have some quiet, solitary time, so bounding up the stairs brandishing the watch is likely to be unhelpful. He puts it back down and defers presenting Beckett with his success for now.

Beckett doesn't reappear till after Alexis is home from school. From her very slightly tousled look, Castle infers that she has either taken a nap or spent the afternoon reading in solitary splendour. While he'd have been very happy if she had spent it reading in his company, he's always rather had the impression that Beckett needs quite a lot of time without company, and anyway since she still hasn't access to anything other than a smartphone she can't have been doing serious research on rental apartments. With only a little luck, in fact, since her agent-visiting had been so depressingly useless this morning, she won't have been doing any research at all.

"Can I help?" she asks, slowly attaining the kitchen counter and a stool. Castle looks up from the yellow pepper he's efficiently julienning.

"I don't know. You _may_ help," he says irritatingly and pedantically, "but whether you _can_ or not depends on how you and your ribs feel about it."

Beckett's hand flexes and makes a small but threatening move towards a stray knife. Castle swiftly removes it. He likes his fingers in their current shape and alignment.

"Okay, if you want to help you may…" he looks around. Everything else is already done. "Oh. I'm finished. There isn't anything with which to help."

"Not even your grammar," Beckett mutters, not quite inaudibly.

"My grammar requires no help," Castle says very smugly. "But should you need help with yours, I'll be very happy to assist."

"No, thank you. Writing police reports is a skill which you do not possess." Castle opens his mouth. "They require facts. Your writing is not factual." He shuts it again. There isn't much to be said to that. Besides which, Beckett has just very pointedly reminded him that she can use perfect English if she wants to. He concludes that discretion will be the better part of valour, drops the julienned pepper into the salad in an attractive pattern, and grins.

"Done. Dinner when everyone's ready."

Castle doesn't let Beckett help with putting dinner out either. There's no need: Alexis is there, and he doesn't want her or his crockery damaged if she twists and tweaks her ribs. The mistake, on balance, was saying the second part in the way that he did. Beckett doesn't start an argument in front of Alexis, but she's not terribly impressed by his care for either her or his crockery – or the equivalence between them – and then ensures that Alexis carries conversation by asking her a number of questions. Castle watches the masterclass in applying gentle interrogation techniques to avoid a conversational direction that one doesn't want to take – that would be anything Castle might say – and stores it all up for Nikki. He doesn't mention that. Beckett doesn't need to know that while she thinks she's making it clear that he's in trouble, he's actually benefiting enormously.

However, a glass of wine – only one, early enough that it will have worn off before Beckett takes her bedtime painkillers – and an offer of coffee restore relative harmony. Beckett peels herself off the stool, undertakes a very slow attempt at a stretch from feet to waist and then from shoulders to scalp, missing out the danger zone of her chest along the way, and walks with a reasonable imitation of normality to the couch. Castle's just about to (metaphorically) cheer when he realises Alexis is joining Beckett.

Dammit. He'd been planning to present the watch, but he's not doing that in company. Anything could happen, and he would rather it happened in private. Public displays of emotion are not the Beckett style. He scraps his plans, and preserves a happy family visage and conversation all evening. Just for once, it would have been helpful if Alexis was still six and could be put to bed at seven-thirty. Instead, she's trying out career options and study combinations and – _what_?

Colleges that aren't within two hours' drive of Manhattan? Colleges on the West Coast? Colleges _overseas_? And Beckett is not dissuading Alexis? Why not? The West Coast is _dangerous_. It's full of geeky types and surfer dudes and movie moguls who didn't commission movies or TV shows from his books until Nikki. (No taste at all.) And _overseas_? England? No no no _no_! It's full of non-Americans. Funny accents and the wrong spelling, and people who don't appreciate good English. Why, some of them seem to think they invented the language and it's Americans who use it wrongly. Ridiculous. Of course he's travelled widely, but that's different. Alexis can travel as much as she likes – on vacations or short study tours. _Living_ that far away? Not his baby.

"Of course, it's really different living abroad," Beckett is saying. "You immerse yourself in the culture – at least if you want to get anything out of the place. It's pointless going if you're just going to eat McDonalds or mac-n-cheese all the time." Her face glints with mischief. "The drinking age is a lot lower, too. Eighteen in England, so I hear."

"What about Kiev?"

"I don't remember there being a cut-off. Technically it was eighteen, but no-one really cared as long as you looked it."

Castle chokes. Then he chokes again as Beckett casts him a don't-be-so-overprotective glance and carries on.

"Travelling really expands your horizons. I loved it. Living away from home for college and going to Kiev was scary, but it was the best thing I ever did."

Castle glances swiftly at Beckett. That last had sounded more than a little wistful, and her eyes are suddenly bright in a different way, mischief gone.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	7. Chapter 7

_Please note that this and subsequent chapters may include very strong T rating, verging on M._

* * *

 **7: Time of our lives**

Alexis, oblivious to Beckett's momentary switch of mood, carries on questioning till she decides it's her bedtime, which is unhappily coincidental with Beckett deciding it's her bedtime too. If Castle were paranoid, he'd think Beckett were running off. Since he's not, and mostly since Beckett's been shifting uncomfortably on the couch and failing to find a comfortable position for the last half hour or more, he reckons she needs her horse-dropping painkillers and another night's sound sleep.

Actually, maybe bedtime isn't such a bad idea after all…

Castle protests not at all about Beckett's departure to her own room and indeed claims to be tired himself. He takes his laptop into bed with him and, struck by inspiration, sketches out not just the plans for several chapters but the detail to go with several disparate pieces. He'll connect them up later. For now, it's enough to get them down on paper (as it were). He's still frowning at a particular word choice which he doesn't really like but for which he can't think of a better synonym when he hears a soft breath and following gasp from the main room, heading in the direction of his office. He tucks the laptop swiftly away, thanking his stars that he'd had the sense not to put the light on in anticipation of just this occurrence, and whisks himself into an attitude of, if not total unconsciousness, certainly so close to sleep as to be indistinguishable. It is, after all, well past midnight.

Exactly as he'd hoped, padding feet move through his office and into his bedroom, approach the bed, pause, and then the delicate scent of Beckett wafts past his nose and the other side of the bed sinks very marginally and there she is, again. She makes herself comfortable – as far as she can: there's a certain amount of held breath – and then, clearly convinced by his pretence, reaches out for his hand, which he had conveniently placed in an eminently graspable position. He can't stop his fingers curling around hers, enveloping her hand in his.

"I know you're awake, Castle."

Oh. That's – weird. She knew he was awake and still slipped into bed? Ooohhh.

"How?"

"Breathing. When you're asleep you breathe differently." But she hasn't pulled her hand away or left.

"D'you want to be here with me so you can sleep easy, Beckett?"

"Ye-es," she admits, dragging the word reluctantly from her tongue.

"Holding hands do?" Especially since he can't cuddle her.

"Yeah." She sounds near to asleep already. "For now," she breathes almost inaudibly. Castle is fairly certain she didn't mean to say that out loud, either. He adds it to all the other statements he expects he wasn't meant to hear and arrives at a veritable bouquet of compliments. He drifts into sleep still holding Beckett's hand and smiling. His dreams are exceedingly pleasant.

* * *

Waking up is also exceedingly pleasant. Sometime during the night Beckett has shifted – oh, no, it's he who's shifted – to be tucked against his side, still with her hand in his. She's still asleep, dark hair over the pillows and his shoulder, dark lashes sweeping her cheeks. He admires her for a moment. Then temptation overtakes good sense and he – very carefully – lays his free hand over her midriff, in the closest cousin to a cuddle he thinks can be managed without pressing broken bones or otherwise waking her. He sinks into a pool of desire-tinged warmth and snugglement, feathering his fingers across Beckett's smooth sleep tee and, not wholly accidentally, shifting it so that his fingers end up flirting with her smooth, warm skin. Heat surges up from his fingertips to the rest of his body.

This is appallingly dangerous and even more appallingly addictive. Arousal is very rapidly overtaking snugglement, which is a very bad choice when they're both in a bed and he's only wearing boxers and her sleep shorts would only take an instant to remove… His groan resonates through the bedroom, and he lifts his hand, rolls on to his back and away from temptation incarnate.

Which action wakens temptation in the form of Beckett's big, beautiful eyes; sleepy and a little confused; her full mouth, the tip of her tongue licking off the dryness of sleep; the slight rise and fall of her chest; her lithe form shrouded by the comforter but still discernible to the educated gaze. Castle, who has spent over a year educating his gaze to Masters standard, contents himself with gazing. _Educated_ gazing.

"Staring is creepy," Beckett points out, with a grin, and opens her eyes fully. "How many times do I have to say this?"

"You're awake. Why are you awake and spoiling my creepy staring time? Go back to sleep."

"Your creepy staring time? Say _what_?"

"Part of the deal," Castle says airily. "You get my brilliant crime-solving theories and insights and I get to follow you and have creepy staring time."

Beckett rolls her eyes. "You're not following me right now. Therefore no creepy staring time."

"Okay," Castle says agreeably. "No creepy staring. Ordinary friendly staring instead."

Beckett sighs heavily and rolls her eyes again. "No staring."

"Aw, _Beckett_. How can I not stare at your beautiful…face."

"Last time I looked in a mirror my face wasn't below my shoulders."

"It's a miracle! You're a shape-changing alien, and you've just moved your face back to your head."

Beckett groans and puts her hands over her eyes in a gesture of resignation. "Castle, stop ogling, stop leering, and _stop staring_. Capisce?"

"Okay." He's still perfectly agreeable. "I won't stare any more." Instead he drops his head and lands up on her lips. Her surprised squeak is music to his ears and provides the access his tongue and mouth demand. He lets go of her hand, slides an arm under her neck to hold her in a way that (he hopes) means he won't cause her any discomfort, and gives himself up to the unconfined joy of kissing Kate Beckett in his bed.

Beckett seems to find it a very pleasant experience too. Albeit she can't move, she's still managed to lock her hands round his neck in a grip reminiscent of a well-tightened vice, and keeping himself from being pulled down on to her is taking some considerable concentration and effort which Castle would really rather devote to showing her how good even simply kissing can make her feel.

He has a sudden idea, and acts on it without further ado or any consideration of the likely consequences. He stops kissing Beckett, who emits a forcefully displeased noise.

"Stay still, Beckett."

She growls in a really quite unnecessarily unkind and unwarranted manner. "Kiss me," she orders.

"In a moment," he smirks. "I need to make sure you don't move."

"Did I fall into some parallel universe porn movie set? You wanna _stop me moving_? What is this, a faked-up snuff – _OW_!" She takes an involuntary deep breath.

"It was actually the _ow_ bit I wanted to stop," Castle says patiently. "I don't like the _ow_ bit. I'd rather it was _ooohhhh_. Or _ohhhhhh_. Or _yes Castle please Castle_ " – he looks at Beckett's suffused face and decides to quit while he's ahead. Or alive. "I wanted you not to hurt yourself."

"Oh," Beckett mutters, deflating from her incipient murderous wrath. "How?"

Castle smirks in the most aggravating fashion possible. "You'll see," he says, which he knows to be the single most annoying phrase known to man or woman anywhere on God's green earth. Beckett's wrath re-emerges in the form of a glare at sunspot intensity, which does not diminish when Castle starts to pack pillows around her.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Precautions."

"Huh?"

"Padding."

"Castle, I swear I will shoot you if you don't _explain_. Right now."

"You'll see," he says again, even more annoyingly. "Haven't you read the story of The Princess and the Pea?"

"Clearly you're the irritatingly annoying Pea. Apart from that, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing," Castle grins, and places another pillow around his splutteringly incoherent Beckett.

When she's half buried in a mound of pillows sufficient to restock Macy's and completely incapable of moving anywhere until some of the packaging is removed, Castle stops.

"Is this what fragile items feel like?" Beckett muses dangerously. "When they're all packed in little Styrofoam pellets? Because I'm not fragile and I don't need wrapped in cotton wool."

"These are not cotton wool!" Castle ejaculates indignantly. "They're finest goose down."

"That is _not_ the point. Why are you wrapping me up in pillows when you should be kissing me?"

Castle smiles happily. "So I can kiss you. Are you asking me to kiss you, Beckett?"

"I'm telling you to kiss me."

"Are you?"

"Castle, _shut up and kiss me_." Whenever Beckett uses that tone, mountains move and the seas part. Castle does precisely what he's told. With a few refinements of his own, it's true. Starting with sliding his arm back under Beckett's neck and ensuring he's propped on that elbow and only leaning over the piled pillows. Conveniently, and not coincidentally, that means that his other hand is completely free. He uses it to stroke Beckett's shoulder, which is peeking out of her silky tee, and finds her skin warm, smooth, and possessed of magical properties. It must be. All his common sense has been made to disappear.

The loss of his common sense is surely why his mouth is devouring Beckett's little sexy noises and his free hand has roamed downward to slide the tee out of the way and play across her midriff, navel and then skate over her hip to the firm muscle of her thigh. Within the clasp of his other arm, and the padding of the pillows protecting her torso, she is barely moving, though if she were free to move she'd be arching against him and he'd be above her. He should stop.

 _She_ should stop. _That_ was entirely unfair and unhelpful and Beckett should _not_ be teasing him like that if she can't act on it. But she's done it _again_. And she's smirking. He can feel the quirk and curve of her lips under his at just the right angle to be a smirk. Evil woman.

The mistake was definitely retaliating. Because that has drowned them both in the tsunami of all their suppressed desire and pent-up need, and somehow they're as helpless to stop it or resist as a dandelion seed in a tornado. Her hand has sneaked inside his boxers and is playing wickedly around and across and up and down and stroking and palming and gripping and sliding and _oh God Beckett_ and his fingers have pulled away the shorts and found heat and damp and soft silky flesh; dipping and circling and stroking and rubbing and entering and _oh God Castle_ and _fuck_ that all got hot and messy in a hurry. He keeps Beckett from arching and with deft, delicate slides of his fingers brings her to soft release. She doesn't bother with the _soft_ part.

He only just manages not to collapse over her, but beside her, one arm still under her neck, the other safely out the way.

"Um… Beckett…"

"Uh?"

"What just happened?"

There's a snort.

"Well, if you don't know by now, Castle…"

"No, Beckett, I know _that_. _How_ did it happen? We were platonically" – another snort – "okay, _mostly_ platonically, holding hands."

"You kissed me, Castle."

"You told me to," he says angelically.

"I don't remember telling you to do any of the rest of it."

"I don't remember asking you to do any of the rest of it either. And you're the one who sneaked into this bed."

"I didn't hear you objecting. To any of it."

There is a definite air of _humph_ on both sides of the bed. Beckett isn't looking at Castle – even if she could see him over the pillows. Castle isn't looking at Beckett. Both of them are pouting.

After a brief pause, both sets of fingers surreptitiously steal slowly from their current separation and meet on top of the pillows. Castle curls his hand around Beckett's, and removes the pillows between them by judicious movement of their joined grip to allow him to be in contact all along the length of her body. Well, she shouldn't move, so he will.

"I liked it, though…" he drawls sleepily. "We should do more of it." The hand by her shoulder slips on to her arm and presses lightly, in what might, had she been less fragile around the torso, have been an embrace. Of course, if Beckett were less fragile around the torso, he'd be initiating round two. Or – equally likely – she would.

It's just a shame that his alarm goes off at that point, before he can experiment. Castle nearly falls out of bed in shock but fortunately, even in his hazy state, remembers to let go of Beckett first. _She_ doesn't move at all.

"Don't you want to get up, Beckett?"

"Nope," she says, happily somnolent, and closes her eyes.

"But…"

"But I don't have to. No work. No bodies. No home to go to. And I'm not doing a walk of shame. Night." She pulls a convenient pillow across her face.

"It's _morning_." All he gets is an obviously faked soft snore – he already knows Beckett doesn't snore – and her oh-so-kissable lips quirking in a _gotcha_ smile. He harrumphs for effect and wanders off to clean up, make breakfast and shoo everyone else out.

When he returns to his bedroom Beckett is genuinely asleep. He indulges in an overdose of creepy staring in between shower, shave, teeth, dressing and – vital! – fixing his hair; and, Beckett still being asleep, makes himself more coffee and settles down to write. The watch box sits on his desk and watches him. It's worse than Gina, but at least it doesn't harass him. (Gina calls it encouragement. She lies.) He ignores it, anyway. He'll have something – someone – for it in due time. He is not waking Beckett, who needs all the healing sleep she can get, and then will require at least two cups of coffee to attain coherent thought, simply to give her the mended watch. He goes back to writing.

Beckett doesn't wake till after nine, from which Castle concludes that she is (one) healing and (two) really quite badly hurt no matter how much she doesn't admit it. She emerges sleepy-eyed and tousled, still in her nightwear. With astonishing and, he feels, immense restraint, Castle does not sweep the top of the desk clear, sit her on it in easy reach and start again exactly where they left off three hours ago.

"Coffee, sleepyhead?" There's a grunt. On balance, it's likely to mean _yes please_ , though it might equally be irritation at the appellation. "C'mon, then. Let's get you some." He takes another look at her. "On second thoughts, let's get you a robe first. Mother might reappear any moment." He retrieves a large and fluffy dark blue robe – he _likes_ comfortable luxury, not to mention luxurious comfort – carefully holds it for Beckett to slip her arms into it with no effort, tugs it up on to her shoulders and wraps it around her. She ties the belt.

Castle looks at her and can't disguise his smothered gurglings as anything but mirth. Beckett is swamped. She looks _tiny_ in the swathes of fabric. He's never normally reminded, or thinks, that he's so much bigger than she: her heels disguise the height difference, and her sheer command presence (or aura of wholesale intimidation, depending on your point of view) covers the rest. But here and now she's… well… _small_ , and cute, and just utterly adorable. And he certainly intends to adore her. Lots. Lots and lots. Lots and lots and lots and lots… okay, now this is just plain creepy. Even he can see that. And Beckett's quizzical look likely means that she's just about to say something snarky. He makes a rapid break for the kitchen.

Beckett tracks him to the coffee machine in much the same intently focused fashion that a pack of Siberian wolves would exhibit when trailing a wounded elk. There is much the same air of predatory anticipation, too. Castle suddenly wonders if he would survive if he didn't provide coffee in the next few minutes, and accelerates his actions. He puts a mug into Beckett's hand, receives a soft _thanks Castle_ , and watches with affectionate amusement as the coffee is absorbed apparently without a single swallow.

"Could you do that trick with beer in college too?"

"Yep."

"Wow." There is no more to say. He couldn't do that – and he'd tried his very hardest. He'd never managed the art of simply opening his throat and cancelling the gag reflex. There's a brief pause in which he tries very, very hard not to think of what it might mean if Beckett can still do that. He fails, entirely. "More coffee?"

"Please." She holds the cup out for a refill, empties it as quickly as the first and holds it out again. Castle watches intelligence seeping into her face as the caffeine hits her system and obliges. This time she only sips, looks up and smiles, turns and pads to the couch, curling up with her feet tucked into the oversize robe, the coffee clamped between her hands. She's walking a little more freely, though there's still considerable stiffness and caution in her movements. He sits down very gently beside her, and puts a not-at-all tentative arm round her shoulders. Hugs and kisses – and more – are now quite definitely _allowed_.

Beckett shifts very slightly into his arm. Castle drops a light kiss on the top of her head. Beckett shifts a tiny bit nearer. Castle drops a kiss on her forehead. Beckett turns her face to him. Castle kisses her nose. Beckett wrinkles said nose and nibbles her lip. Castle concedes defeat, picks her up and deposits her gently on his knee. Then he kisses her properly. So she kisses him back. So he kisses her some more. So she does, and he does, and she does... and he slides a hand inside the enveloping robe and finds warm, soft skin, and kisses her yet more.

When he realises that the reason he feels like he's wearing his robe is because she's managed to undo all his shirt buttons without him even noticing – that's so _unfair_ – and nestle her arm into him and find his skin and _oooohhhh_ _do that some more, please_ and it's so _unfair_ that he can't return the favour but if he just drops his hand down that lovely smooth surface and – oops, forgot to do that first – undoes the belt and maybe turns her a little so it's not the robe that's rubbing against his chest and holds her in and _oh yes_ that feels good against his hand and it is perfectly obvious that his hand feels good to her.

Her fingers explore a little more enthusiastically and a _lot_ more wickedly, and the kisses turn deep and dirty and all-encompassing. He feels almost teenage: heavy petting with his girl – she _is_ his girl now, surely? – on a couch.

And then he simply stops thinking at all because their mutual sensations are overwhelmingly good, and not long after _that_ they're cuddled up replete and sated and mostly asleep. In Beckett's case, in fact, wholly asleep, with her head on his shoulder and his soft towelling robe enveloping her. He puts her extremely carefully back in his bed, covers her up, stretches hugely to ensure that his spine is straightened out because lifting five-foot-nine of muscle (with some very interesting softer curves) is not that easy, and leaves her to it.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Your thoughts are very much appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

**8: Let the good times roll**

Castle is writing when Beckett re-surfaces, and, being wholly lost in Nikki, doesn't notice her as she pads through to find coffee, doesn't notice her when she puts a mug next to him, and doesn't notice her sitting very straight in a high-backed chair until inspiration finally expires, killed off by sore fingers and the extremely nasty experience of a mouthful of stone-cold coffee.

"That's amazing," Beckett says.

"Huh? What's amazing?"

"This." She gestures constrainedly at the clear desk and sleek laptop, contrasted with the stuffed bookshelves and boys' toys elsewhere in the room. "Given the chaos around you all the rest of the time, I'd never expected a tidy desk." That's just good luck. Normally Castle never has a tidy desk, but he'd been procrastinating more than usual and tidying his desk had been a good displacement activity. He smirks.

"I'm wholly amazing, Beckett."

"Yeah, sure you are. You know what's really amazing?"

"Oh, so many things about me are amazing…"

"That you were quiet. I didn't know it was possible." Castle pouts at her. "You talk all the time. You never stop moving your mouth."

"That's not always _talking_ , Beckett," Castle leers, since she's given him the feed line. "I can do lots of other things with my mouth. Come and sit on the desk and I'll show you some of them." Her eyes roll.

"No." Well, that was disappointingly definite. "Could I…" she pauses, a little embarrassed-looking, "draw myself a bath?"

"Only if I get to wash your back."

"What?"

"You tried to wash your own back and it's hurt you every single time, hasn't it?" Beckett glares. Castle glares right back. "Hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Beckett mumbles guiltily.

"Why didn't you tell me?" There's an uncomfortable silence. "Why not? I could at least have found you a loofah, or a long handled bath brush, or" – he grins evilly – "come and washed you myself."

"And there's why," Beckett snarks. "You'd have ogled."

"Unfair, Beckett," Castle points out. "I wouldn't have ogled, That's for callow teens. I – being very definitely a grown man, as you know – would have _admired_. Entirely different." Beckett makes a rude and disbelieving noise. "And" – his tone changes entirely from flirtatious to serious – "I would have found you whatever you needed, so that you didn't hurt yourself." It changes back to cheerful insanity. "I told you, I don't like the _ow_ noises. They're very detrimental to my mental state. They disturb its peaceful happiness. I'll need to meditate for _hours_ to remove the negative energies from my chakras."

Beckett snorts. "You? Meditate?"

"I have been known to take the occasional yoga class, too. I got some of my best ideas there." He smiles soulfully. "The instructor was really flexible."

"You?" Beckett bleats. "You? Yoga? You?"

"Yes, Beckett. Lotus position and everything. I never managed a headstand, though."

"I'm surprised," Beckett mutters. "I'd have thought you could balance Mount Everest on a surface that size."

"Now you're just being mean. You're trying to distract me. It won't work, you know. If you want a bath, I'm going to wash your back. If you want a shower, I'm going to wash your back. If you want a" –

"I know, you're going to wash my back." –

"another cup of coffee while the bath runs," Castle continues, and smirks annoyingly, "then why don't you put the bath on and I'll put the coffee on?" He smirks more widely at her face. _Gotcha_. He then wonders when she'll realise that she hasn't actually said that he _can't_ – or _won't_ – wash her back. If she does, of course he'll comply, _ows_ or not. But _until_ she does… washing her back is fair game.

It would, of course, be very nice to replace the vision of injured Beckett in a wrecked bathroom with the towels on fire with a vision of Beckett luxuriating in his bath. The first is, unfortunately, a real picture that he can't unsee. The second – he's hoping will be created. He puts the coffee on, and wanders through to find Beckett looking slightly dispiritedly at the filling bath.

"What's wrong, Beckett?"

"I haven't any bath salts."

"I do," Castle says, "but I don't think you want mine. Let me go find some upstairs." He disappears, raids the upstairs bathroom, and swiftly returns with a glass bottle which he thinks will suit Beckett. Not too floral, or girlish. Beckett, he thinks, would want a more sophisticated scent. Not that she ever really seems to wear one: only the familiar hint of cherry around her hair.

He waves the opened bottle under Beckett's nose and, when she doesn't choke, sneeze or come out in hives, tips at least half of the contents into the water. The mistake that this has been becomes immediately apparent as the bath fizzes violently and turns a lurid shade of purple, foam rising. The salts hadn't been that hue: they had been quite a pleasant lilac. It doesn't appear soothing, though the steaming scent is delicately aromatic.

Beckett is looking at the water with some horror. "Were you trying to dye me violet, Castle? It smells good, but if I come out looking like a blueberry I will remove the blood from your body if necessary to wash off the colour."

"I don't think blood washes as well as soap does, Beckett. You'd end up looking like a red and purple tie-dye covering. Until the blood dried. Then it would be a nasty shade of brown. Not stylish. I really wouldn't do that."

Beckett regards him with a familiarly irritated bogglement.

"Get in, Beckett. You'll be much happier if you have a nice bath. You'll be even happier when I've washed your back. I promise to tell you if you're going purple."

Beckett's grumbles fade into the bedroom, and strengthen as she returns. She glares at him. "Why are you still in here?"

"To wash your back," Castle says impatiently. "I told you that."

"That doesn't mean that I'm going to strip in front of you and step into the bath." Castle puts on a disappointed face, and watches annoyance rise.

"No? Really no?"

"No."

"Didn't think you would," he says, "but a boy can hope."

"So you're a boy again? In that case you'll be ogling and if _that's_ the case you can stay well away."

"Man. Not boy. And the deal was that you only got a bath if I got to wash your back and stop the _ows_ happening."

"Will you quit using that ridiculous phrase? _Ows happening_? It's not even English."

"I liked it," Castle humphs at her. "Now, seeing as you won't let me admire you getting into the bath, I'm going to make the coffee and when I come back with yours you'll be safely hiding under the foam." He scowls theatrically at her. "It's very unfair, you know." She glares. "It is." The glare intensifies.

Castle decides that discretion is the better part of valour and retreats to the kitchen, listening to the soft ripples of water and the soft indrawn breaths of pain as Beckett, presumably, manoeuvres herself into the bath. Ah. That's why she'd pushed him away. She doesn't want him to see any more of her painful movements. He deliberately takes a little longer to sort out the coffees, indulges himself in putting a pretty design on the top of Beckett's mug – she'll wrinkle her nose at him, which is cute, and pretend that it's ridiculous and sappy, but she'll appreciate it really – and wanders back when all noises that might indicate pain have finished and there are no noises that might indicate that Beckett is turning purple. Yet.

He takes the precaution of tapping on the door. No point in being rude, after all.

"Yeah?"

He takes this as permission and enters. Beckett is buried in bubbles – though there are already fewer bubbles than there had been – and is not noticeably purple. Castle thoughtlessly puts the coffee on the vanity, tries very hard not to stare, and saves his eyeballs from freezing at the view by turning to the cupboard and producing a split-new sponge.

"There we are, Beckett. Back-scrubbing time." She acquires a resigned expression, under which is some relief that she won't have to do it. "I'll be really careful and gentle, but you have to tell me where the fractures are first, so I barely touch them."

"There's no chance of that, Castle. They're at the front." Castle clamps his jaw shut on some very suggestive comments indeed just before both feet, not to say also his ankles and then knees, land in his mouth.

"Okay." He kneels on the bathmat and then stands up and leaves.

"Huh? Where are you going?"

"To find a hairclip. Your hair is in the way." He bounces out and shortly bounces back, hairclip in hand. It's entirely serendipitous that twisting her hair into a neat twirl clipped out the way allows him to firstly run his hands through it and secondly have a really good view of the elegant curve of her neck. It is not serendipitous that the view of her equally elegant shoulders shows off a complete gallery of blue and purple bruises. "Those look horrible," he says, shocked. "No wonder you can't move easily." He has a thought. "I didn't hurt you, did I? When I was hugging you?"

"No. Don't worry. You didn't."

Castle breathes a sigh of relief – he'd hate to hurt her, he's never going to hurt her – turns his glance from the bruises to relocate the sponge, notices that he left her coffee out of reach and brings that back too, and is just about to ask her to lean forward when she emits a muffled noise. It doesn't sound happy.

"What is it, Beckett?"

She sniffs. Castle drops the sponge, which disappears under the bubbles, and shuffles round to see her face. Her eyes are glistening and her mouth is twisted in a way indicating that tears are being resolutely blocked.

"Beckett, what's wrong? Does something hurt, suddenly? Do I need to get you painkillers? Or to the hospital?"

"I was going to run my bath, and have a glass of wine in it like I do when the case gets difficult, and then you rang and rang and I was so cross that you were disturbing me when I just needed to think on my own and without you or Shaw or anyone talking all the time; and then I got your message and I was thinking before you warned me that you were just being such a pain and pestering me and it said Goodbye Nikki and I dived for the bath and then it all blew up and you saved me and if you hadn't rung I'd be _dead_ and now…" she dissolves. Speech has become beyond her, all that is left are the desperate, cleansing tears that she hasn't cried properly since he carried her out of her burning apartment.

Castle writes off his shirt without a single regret or qualm for its expensive cotton, and takes Beckett into his arms as far as is possible without falling into the bath. She's sobbing helplessly into his shoulder as everything catches up with her properly. This should have happened three days ago, straight after the second injury, but it seems like it's taken the hot bath to trigger it all. He pats her back and strokes her hair and lets all his strength flow into her while she cries: simply holding her close and saying nothing except _there, there_.

When she's still weeping several moments later, Castle retrieves the bobbing sponge with one hand and very gently washes those bits of Beckett which are available for washing – her neck and back. He thinks that she'd likely washed the rest of her, and she'll be even more unhappy if she's only part-washed rather than wholly washed. Then he reaches for the large, dark blue towels he likes, smoothly lifts her and wraps her into one without ever quite letting go of her for long enough to be noticed, wraps a second round her so that she'll stay warm and carries her back to the bed, where he can sit more comfortably against the headboard and keep her safely cuddled in till she stops crying.

Eventually, the tears stop and Beckett shifts a little, nestling closer. It occurs to Castle that she might be cold, large fluffy towels and his own body heat notwithstanding.

"Do you want the robe back, Beckett?" She shakes her head against his neck.

"Just you," she sighs. "Keep me warm." She sniffs, messily. There's a space of silence as she calms herself and Castle simply carries on cuddling her as closely as he can manage in the circumstances. His damp shirt is cooling rapidly, however, and since that's not comfortable for him it can't be particularly pleasant for Beckett either. He wiggles a hand in between them to undo his shirt buttons, tries very hard and completely unsuccessfully to ignore the softness that the back of his hand is rubbing against, and only just manages to pull the clammy fabric out the way before he forgets the damn shirt in favour of warming and cheering up his miserable bundle of beleaguered Beckett.

He snuggles her in more definitively, which has the happy advantage that the towel dries him off a bit, and waits. She's still sniffing soggily below his ear. He puts a Kleenex in her hand, and instead of being growled at, she simply blows her nose and scrunches it up in her hand. She's limper than he's used to: lax against him. Even when he carried her out her apartment she wasn't this floppy.

"Are you okay, Beckett?"

"Will be," she says, after a while, and blows her nose again. Castle waits some more, supporting her as her intense misery lightens marginally. "It's just all… everything… it's all gone. My home, all my clothes, furniture, all my photos, pictures, souvenirs – all the things that help me remember her. The only thing I've got left is my mom's ring. Even my dad's watch… He fought so hard to beat it and I wore it because I was so proud he had…" She starts crying again. He rams down the urge to drop her, run through to the study and bring the box back right now, because doing that will make her think he's abandoning her. Instead he pats her some more, puts another Kleenex in her hand, and then puts her off his lap and, ignoring her sharp noise of distress, whisks off the bed, into his study, and returns before the noise has wholly faded.

He picks her up again, tucks her in, further ignores the stiffening of her frame and annoyed growl, and tips her chin up to meet her damp, reddened eyes.

"Got you something to cheer you up, Beckett."

"You've given me enough. I need to get my life back together." She tries to move.

"Just look at it, Beckett. You'll like it. Promise."

"Castle, it's really sweet, but whatever it is, I can't deal with it. Leave it."

"No, look at it now. Here it is." He puts the box into her hand. She tries to give it back. He wraps his hand around both hers and the box. "C'mon. If you don't like it I'll…I'll be silent for the whole of the first day we're both back in the precinct."

"Don't _push_ , Castle."

"Open it." His fingers curl around hers and force them to slip under the lid to open the box. She can't resist the pressure.

"Stop pushing. I don't want it, whatever it is."

"I think you will. Just look. Just once? Please?"

"Stop it." Castle lifts the open box. "I don't want – oh my God. Castle…" She starts to cry again, in earnest. "How…?" she sobs.

"I went back to get your chain and ring and the watch. Except the watch was broken and so I got it fixed but it took a day or two."

"You got it fixed?"

Castle squirms a little. He loves being generous. He hates it being known about. His charity donations are strictly private and he has a standard clause for making them which includes a complete lack of publicity. He didn't mind the dry cleaning bill – that was fairly trivial. This… well, Beckett might not like the price, and she'll like it even less if he won't tell her, and she'll try to offer to repay – just like she did with the dry cleaning – and he'll refuse, again, and she'll feel obligated; and oh God, why is it always so _complicated_ between them?

"I did." He thinks of a distraction. "I even got to put the face and hands on, and then the glass. It was really interesting," he waffles on, "to see the insides of a watch like that. I never knew how complicated they were." Success. She's still sniffling soggily, but there's a half-quirk of her lips.

"You were mending my watch?" She stares at his fingers meaningfully, where they're still curved over hers with the box in the palm of her hand.

"Yes," he says indignantly, hoping to achieve more distraction. "I did it well. The jeweller said so." He carefully omits the name of the jeweller. He wouldn't put it past Beckett to call him and insist on paying and the jeweller reimbursing Castle – he certainly wouldn't bet against her forcing it through at gunpoint, if necessary.

"With hands that size?"

"I didn't hear you complaining about my hands when" –

"Finish that sentence and you will never speak another" –

"Beckett, Beckett. When I was carrying you out of a burning building, I was _going_ to say. Whatever were you thinking?" He pulls on a saintly smile.

But Beckett is staring back down at the watch, and then suddenly buries her face in his shoulder, dissolves into tears _again_ – at this rate she'll dissolve him too, which would be unfortunate – and turns into this very un-Beckett, non-Kate, tearful mess who needs support and hugs and love.

Oh. Love. Well, he knew that. Mostly. Sort of. Probably. He just – hadn't actually _thought_ about it. It snuck up on him when he wasn't looking, and now it's tapped him on the shoulder and shouted _boo_ and made him jump. Metaphorically, of course. Really jumping would disturb his beautiful Beckett: even if right now her eyes are likely puffy and her face crumpled and tear-stained and her nose sniffly – she'll still be gorgeous.

And then he tips her chin up and even with tears still trailing down her face she's _objectively_ gorgeous. Of course he's perfectly objective about her… oh, he is so completely gone on her. He's not at all objective. He can't help but drop a kiss on her forehead, and then lean back and hold her there. She's still crying, just a little; sniffing, just a little; staring at the watch in its presentation box in their still linked hands.

"You got it back," she snuffles. "You went and got them both back." Castle puts another Kleenex in her free hand. "Everything that mattered most."

"Yes. _Because_ it mattered." He grins. "And it wasn't like you could go back. That EMT wasn't going to let you go anywhere. So if you couldn't, I could."

There's more sniffing, and a certain degree of eye-blotting. She's clinging to the box as if she'll never let go.

He'll never let go.

* * *

 _I trust that those of you wanting the watch are now happy? Note that the story is not complete..._

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I really appreciate you all._


	9. Chapter 9

**9: Time keeps rolling on**

There is a short pause, while Beckett collects herself.

"You went back while I was in the bus?"

"Er… yeah? When I got you some clothes."

"You went back into a blown-up building to look for my watch and necklace?"

"Yes," Castle says cautiously. This is not sounding like wholesale approval, suddenly.

"You unbelievably stupid" – _what?_ – "reckless, insane _idiot_. You could have been killed. What if there had been a second blast? What if he'd put another time delay bomb in to catch the response team? You _would_ have been killed."

She's _angry_ with him. Why's she _angry_ with him? She's just been delighted that she got her watch back. She's still yelling. "It doesn't matter what they were to me, they aren't worth losing _you_." _What_? There's a very hard stop as she slams her mouth shut and then starts to cry for at least the fourth time today and it's not even eleven in the morning yet.

"They weren't worth it, Castle," she sobs. "Nothing would never have been worth you being killed. You had no right to take that risk. Sure they matter, but not as much as you." Oh. _Oh_. Castle's baffled brain finally fires and overtakes his rising emotions.

"I'm more important than these?" Beckett isn't answering. Beckett has buried her face in his shoulder and is – from the uncontrolled spasms of her shoulders – absolutely distraught. He'd bet on it being at least half fury, and the rest upset. He tries to detach her from the box, and reluctantly she releases it to allow him to place it safely on the nightstand before it drowns. Her arms come up over his chest and cling around his shoulders. His arms stay very firmly around her, hands stroking soothingly softly; he's murmuring meaninglessly into her hair.

All the time his ridiculously happy heart is thumping _you mean more_. Which is only a breath away from _I love you_ – and from Beckett means far more, because he knows all too well – it had very nearly, courtesy of Dick Coonan, been the last thing he ever knew – how much Beckett's mother had meant to her. And, though he has never met Beckett's father and consequently never seen them together, he has not forgotten one single solitary word or tone of the way in which she had once – that first time she had opened up the tiniest amount and let him _see_ her – spoken about both items and shown how much each meant to her. That had told him everything he now needs to know about how much her father means to her, still.

And yet she has just outright _said_ that he is more important than both of these mementoes and the memories that they carry for her, which have defined her entire adult life.

"Kate… Kate, it's okay. CSU and the fire marshals had been all over it. I wasn't taking any risks. Really. I wouldn't… I just wanted to get you them back."

"You follow me around into every insanely life-threatening situation we're forced into, and then you go off and put yourself in a totally avoidable one just for two pieces of jewellery? If you ever, _ever_ do that again I will arrest you and put you in a cell in a solitary confinement block till you're eighty five."

"With handcuffs and you, that might be hot," Castle muses. Beckett hits him, hard enough to hurt. "Ow! Too soon?"

"Way too soon." She's pale.

"You've just hurt yourself, haven't you?"

"I'm fine."

"Right. That's why you're white and wincing." He's sure it was the crying – and the yelling at him. He is not quite stupid enough to say that. "You shouldn't have hit me. That's what did it." He was quite stupid enough to say that. Beckett looks as if she's about to hit him again. "Don't," he says, and brings her arms down so that he can wrap her all up into him. He thinks she's about to protest, but suddenly she simply softens and leans into him, relying on his support to hold her up.

"Don't ever do that again. Things don't matter. People do."

"Are you saying I matter, Beckett?" He wishes he hadn't said that the minute he hears himself. If ever there was a question to make her spook that's it. Sure enough, there's instant tension in her body. He slumps, mentally. Just as it was all going so well, and he's messed it up.

She raises damp eyes to meet his.

"Are you stupid or something?" she snaps, fixing him with a ferocious glare. "Of course you matter." But it seems that that's all her courage used up, as her eyes fall away and her head drops. He tips her face up so that he can see her.

"So do you. And those two things – the ring and the watch – matter to you. So they matter to me" – he holds his breath but seems to get away with that – "so I went to get them but I only went in because the response team told me it was safe." He breathes out. "I did ask. I'm not entirely reckless."

"You follow me around," she points out, with a tiny but Beckett-like smirk. "That's pretty reckless."

"No, that's not reckless. That's research. Not the same at all." He smirks in return. "Reckless is entirely different."

"Oh?"

"Reckless, Beckett, would be sneaking into someone else's bed late at night when you should be resting broken ribs." She colours. "Or maybe something else. Reckless might be kissing the person you found there. Like this." He drops his head to meet her lips.

Maybe he shouldn't be doing this when she's emotional. Maybe he shouldn't be doing this again at all until she's mended.

But maybe not doing it now when she's practically admitted all her feelings would be the biggest mistake of his life.

He deepens his kiss, searching out the seam of her lips, traces of saltiness on his tongue attesting to the tears she had shed. Access is immediate, acceptance and then her own assertion of her right to access his mouth follows barely afterwards. The kiss turns intent and sure, one to the other and back again, demanding and receiving, switch-around and turnabout, but regardless of the fusion of their mouths, it doesn't – yet – explode. Finally they drag their mouths apart.

"Or reckless might be doing this."

The top towel falls away after a tiny tug from Castle's finger.

"Or this."

His shirt falls off his shoulders. He hadn't touched it.

"Or this."

The second towel falls away too. He lays Beckett down on the bed and slides to lie beside her, leaning on an elbow.

"Or this."

His pants are open. He removes them, in case Beckett should try to do that too. She's already done quite enough with his shirt and pants to show that she wants this to go the same place he does. She smiles up at him.

"Let's be reckless together, Castle."

She reaches up, pulls his head down, and conquers his mouth before he's finished the answering smile. Her hands are gripping at the back of his head, holding him in place for her invasion, and if only he didn't have to remember not to place any weight at all on her chest this would be wholly heavenly. He's dreamed about that chest ever since he didn't get to sign it.

So all he can do is kiss her, and delicately stroke while avoiding her fractured frontage. Happily, kisses and delicate stroking give him plenty of pleasurable options. He'll bear those all in mind. For now, he's content to explore the manifold delights of kissing, skin to skin. More can wait. They don't have to hurry, there's no reason to rush. They have all the time in the world to learn each other, study up and reach mastery. It's already been amazing, and it can only get better with practice. Lots of practice. He'll just start right now. Slowly.

He slips a slow hand on to her hip, an easy touch, softens his searching kiss and subtly, gently flirts with her full lips; teases and tricks her into thinking he's staying, then moves away and round the clean line of her jaw, a nibble of her ear, a tiny flicker of tongue on the kiss he drops behind it, and she sighs out a soft little sexy noise and relaxes into the delicate seduction seeping over her.

"Just stay still, Beckett. Let me do it all. You'll have plenty of chances another time. Relax." Amazingly, she relaxes further, completely boneless, eyes hazy, skin still too white for comfort, but a slight flush rising on her neck. "You're beautiful," he breathes into her ear, as he tucks her nearer arm through the gap between his arm and his chest, so that she's semi-cuddled in. His hand moves slowly over her skin and wanders lazily down her thigh, as innocently playful as a week-old kitten and as dangerously potent as a panther.

"I'm bruised and my ribs are broken," she murmurs. "That's not beautiful."

"I'll kiss you better."

"That an AMA-approved technique?" she flirts.

"Much older than the AMA. Kissing it better probably worked in the Stone Age." He demonstrates, a tiny touch of lips on the bruises across her shoulders, a butterfly's breath sending warmth into them.

"It does work," she purrs. "Maybe you should do it some more?" Castle has no objection to that at all. His lips move softly over her collarbones, all his weight supported on his arm below her neck and the arm now arched over her, not quite touching her. All those press-ups at the gym are paying off, he thinks smugly. Still, he wouldn't want to hold this position for too long. The small, neat mounds and dark pink tips below him are far too attractive and if he stays like this he'll start to be attracted, like iron to a magnet. In self-defence, and the certain knowledge that puncturing Beckett's lung is not likely to endear him to her, he wriggles upward to return to her lips, mouth, and the interesting effects of nuzzling just behind her ear. She likes that, if the swift pressure of her hand on his back is any guide.

If only he'd remembered that sliding back upward would leave his hand free to roam again. He really hadn't meant to skate down over her other hip, trace the cut of her muscle, ease over the lithe outline or delineate the narrow crease where hip meets thigh. He hadn't meant any of that, but his hands are as ill-disciplined as his sense of humour. He can't _stop_ touching her. He always touches things: it's how he thinks. He fidgets, unless he has something in his hands to play with. It's just that what's in his hands right now isn't in any way a toy. It's far too delicate, and far too important. He needs to treat it very carefully and not play roughly with it at all. His hand wanders a little further, into softer areas, causing a quiet noise of approval.

He holds her shoulder as she tries to turn into him, takes her hand as it creeps up to meet his and clasp his fingers, leans over again and repossesses her mouth, giving and greedy at once. She's there with him, plainly hampered by her injury, but he's worked out that there might be a way to do this – if she wants to and he's really, really slow and careful – and anyway there will be plenty of time – a lifetime of time, he hopes – to experiment more enthusiastically. (A small and unpleasant thought tells him that cops get injured, so they'd better work out how to deal with it. Not much stops Beckett from doing what she wants to: in her own way she's as incapable of impulse control as he is. The only difference is that she only shows it on the job.)

"Still wanna be reckless with me, Beckett?"

"I thought we were being reckless together," she husks. "I don't hear me saying stop, Castle."

"You're the one who shouldn't do anything strenuous and who's moving like a half-petrified mummy." She squawks. Ah. That wasn't tactful, was it? "Not that you look like a mummy." He gazes appreciatively at her. "You look gorgeous."

"Nice recovery. Not that you'd have had time to escape if I could move."

"If you could move we wouldn't be having this conversation." Beckett raises a seductively questioning eyebrow. "We'd be having a very different form of intercourse." Identically wicked smirks appear on both their faces. Castle watches Beckett's trail off into disappointment. "I have a theory," he says.

"A theory? Is this really the time you want to start on _theories_?" She licks her lips. Castle thinks that if she could, at this point she'd flex, and he'd be even more completely lost than he already is.

"You like my theories," he pouts.

"No, I put up with your theories. Just like I'm putting up with you not kissing me." He takes the hint – well, brick to the head – and dips to kiss her for a while. His uncontrollable fingers wander across her leg and play a little, gently. Her hips twist a fraction, and he listens to the cadence of her breathing for the slightest hint that it's too much, that pleasure will be turned to pain by an inadvertent movement.

"So I have a theory," he says again, after there have been plenty of kisses and quite a lot of gently provocative touching. Beckett simply gives a formless murmur and is too lax in his arm even to start to argue about it. "My theory is that in this situation" – his fingers play, and there's a tiny squirm – "I can do" – he nearly simply says _you_ , and only just stops himself – "anything you want me to (she might say _skydiving_ , just to wind him up, if he hadn't put in the qualifier of _this situation_ ) without hurting you." She blinks slowly. "Well, nearly anything."

"Oh?" she drawls out slowly, and anticipation lights in her eyes. "Really?" She smiles slowly and ferally. "Theories need tested…" Then she makes an unhappy face. "But I can't do anything much. 'S not fair."

"You'll get your chances, Beckett." Castle smiles with irritating innocence. "Don't be selfish. You need to learn to share – ow!" Her nails have just raked down his back.

"I am not selfish." He possesses himself of her evil hand.

"Yes you are."

"I'm _not_. I want to play, not lie here like a blow-up doll and nearly as responsive."

"You are being selfish. If you don't let me do nearly everything, we can't do anything, because I'm not letting you hurt yourself. And if you try to move more than a little, you'll get hurt. Again." He looks determined and annoyingly saintly in even shares. "So stop being selfish and let me" – he waggles his eyebrows wolfishly and puts on a leeringly lascivious expression – "make you very, very happy. And if it makes you happy, we'll work out a way for you to make me very, very happy too."

Beckett acquires an attitude of flopped-ness, and pouts. "Wanna play," she grumbles, much in the manner of a spoilt small child. Castle kisses her. Only to make the pout go away, of course. Nothing to do with how ridiculously adorable sulky Beckett looks when she can't get what she wants. In this case, what she clearly wants is to reduce him to a puddle.

"You'll get to play. Stop sulking, Beckett. It doesn't suit you. Concentrate on mending your ribs." He smiles evilly. "Or on my ruggedly handsome face and well-shaped body." He smiles even more evilly. "Or just concentrate on this," and he moves his fingers wickedly between her legs and takes her mouth and holds her relatively still with his arm over her toned stomach and slowly, gently, and thoroughly brings her up and up and up in such a way as to leave her totally incapable of movement or thought that isn't _more, Castle!_ And then he brings her into a drawn out, gentle climax that leaves her with her eyes shut and muscles loose.

"See," he says happily, perfectly pleased with himself, "you're happy again. Being unselfish makes you happy." A growl rises from Beckett's lips, but since it's heavily diluted by satisfaction he ignores it in favour of a carefully judged snuggle. An aura of smugness surrounds him. It almost makes up for his own considerable discomfort.

" _Now_ do I get to make you happy," Beckett says out of nowhere.

"Okay," Castle replies placidly, and is shortly wondering where his boxers went and how Beckett achieved that without apparent movement. Magic invisible scissors? Oh – they're there. He'd simply failed to notice them, being considerably more attentive to the movement and grip of Beckett's long fingers. Now this is not what he had planned. He had had a very different idea. The problem is that Beckett will break if there is any substantial weight on her chest, but she will also break – or break him, more like – if he doesn't let her play. Fortunately he has a solution that should stop her taking matters into her own hands – _ohhhhh_ – okay, further into her own hands.

"I have a plan," he announces, and detaches her hands. Then he sits up, regardless of Beckett's dark mutterings, and finishes removing his boxers. The mutters become marginally lighter. He takes a solid grip of Beckett's slim waist. "I'm going to lift you to sitting up. Okay?"

"I can do that myself, Castle. It's broken ribs, not a broken back." She demonstrates, under Castle's nervous eye and twitching fingers. When she's propped up against the pillows he breathes a deep and not-at-all hidden sigh of relief. "I can manage," she says faux-crossly. "See?"

"Hmmm," he hums sceptically, but shuffles closer to the centre of the bed, leaning against the headboard. "Are you going to let me lift you this time?"

Beckett looks at him. "Why do you need to lift me? I can move myself."

"I want to. Humour me, Beckett." He grins. "I'm a big, strong man" –

"With an ego to match," she snarks.

" – so you should let me prove it." He puts his hands back on her waist and waits for a second. "Okay, put your hands on my shoulders." He lifts her smoothly and re-settles her straddling his lap, kneeling, then brings his arms around her again as she sits back on her heels.

"Now what?" she smirks, and slides her hand down over his chest and abs to find the hard weight between them. "This seems to be in the way." She leans forward a tiny fraction, carefully, presses her lips to his and traps him – and her _ohhhhh_ evil hand – between them. "Let's hear your theory now, Castle."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Your thoughts are very much appreciated._


	10. Chapter 10

_Be warned, this chapter is probably M-rated._

* * *

 **10: Time is on our side**

This is not fair. _Totally_ not fair. How is he supposed to think up theories or remember his brilliant ideas when Beckett is doing _that_ with his – er – prime assets? He can't think at all, right now. Her fingers are _wicked_ and when he's been watching her hands and those – _ohhh Beckett_ – elegant fingers curling round her Glock he might have wished that they were curling round him just like – _ohhhh_ – this but he'd never imagined how good it would feel.

He had a plan. He had a _plan_. A good plan. If only he could remember it. He's sure it involved Beckett getting involved and him getting involved but he can't remember _how_ he was going to get them involved and there are far too many _involved_ s in that sentence and _stop Beckett_! She does. He groans because it was so _good_ but he'd had a better plan and he wants to remember it.

"Why'd you stop me?" she asks. Crossly. She's scowling at him.

"I had an idea."

"You stopped me enjoying myself because _you_ had an idea?" She pouts at him. "Weren't you enjoying it? You seemed to be." She smirks. "You _really_ seemed to be." Her hand moves again. Castle takes it away in self-defence, before he is totally undone.

"I've got a better idea. One we can both enjoy together."

"We were both enjoying it."

"You'd enjoy this more, Beckett. So would I." He carries on before she can stop him explaining again. However enjoyably she would stop him. "If I move you, you can slide up and down…" He halts, expectantly. Her eyes widen briefly, and then turn dark and sinfully knowledgeable.

"How very clever," she purrs dangerously. "Maybe you have some good ideas after all, Castle."

"Maybe? I _always_ have good" –

"Crazy." –

"ideas. But this one," he smirks smugly, "is the best yet."

"I'll reserve judgement. I could move myself." she says. How unkind she is. It's going to be his best idea ever. He's just about to prove it. His hands smooth over her back, feather-light and delicate, slow strokes. He'd always thought their first time would be fast and furious, that they would be overtaken by the heat of the moment and the hammer of mutual desire, but it hasn't been like that, it's been built in injury and fear – hers, for once, not so much his – and destruction that has somehow, phoenix from the ashes, given this relationship birth.

"I _know_ you can move yourself, but why would you want to when I can do it for you?" he entices. "Hands back on my shoulders, Beckett." Those beautiful, elegant, evil hands, land on him. She doesn't grip, only rests them over the firm muscle. His hands, wide, strong, grasp her waist again, surprisingly close to meeting over her back: she's so much slimmer than he expects at the waist, so much softer up top. Just so much more, in every way.

He lifts her without effort and without a jerk, holding her close to his chest and ensuring with every move that she is in no pain at all, and one of her hands wriggles down between them to position him delicately exactly where they both want him and he lowers her a tiny amount and _oh_ that feels just so perfectly wonderful as he starts to slide slowly into her and her hand comes back up to his shoulder and as he goes deeper her grip tightens and her nails begin to bite and it's all in slow-motion: slow-motion heaven as she's sinking on to him and around him and yes he's in control of the speed of descent but it's so difficult not just to thrust up into her but he can't, just can't, not here, not now, not yet.

 _Oh fuck_ , she's glorious. Hot and wet and tight around him and she's pressed against him and her head has fallen back and he's holding her so close and she's _his_ , all his and all here and she feels so perfectly right and he _wants_ to make love to her in all the ways that he knows already she'll enjoy but that's got to wait for later because however much he could make her arch and move and scream for him now is not the time.

They'll have all the time they need. He moves slowly within her, barely shifting, learning the sensation and the placement and finding a spot that makes her gasp which right now is a bad idea but will come in very handy later and he kisses her in half-apology and then begins to move her up and down and she's gripping him hard and ravaging his mouth – shouldn't he be doing that? – and _ohhhhh_ he steals her breath as she pilfers his and it might be gentle movement but it's working for both of them and _ohhhhhh_ as she slumps into his neck and _ohhhhhh_ he's gone too.

A little time later Beckett unfolds her long legs to separate herself from him. This is not the idea. Castle pouts at her. "Come back, Beckett."

"I can't feel my toes." She's cautiously sliding her leg – _ohhhh_ – over his lap to sit with her legs stretched straight out, wiggling her toes and grimacing. "Oooh. Pins and needles."

"I could massage your feet," Castle suggests happily.

"Nope."

"Why not?" Beckett's not answering. There's only one reason Beckett wouldn't be answering and he absolutely loves the thought of it. Just for once, there's going to be a way he can reduce Beckett to hopeless inability to reduce _him_ to incoherence. "You're ticklish," he says triumphantly. "You're _ticklish_." Oh, this will be _wonderful_. He can feel himself beaming with pure, mischievous delight.

"So what?"

"So you'll never be able to resist me. All I'll have to do is tickle you and you'll do anything for me to stop. Oh, Beckett. The possibilities are _endless_ – ooh! Ow! Stoppit, Beckett! _Stoppit!_ " _Dammit!_

"Looks like you're ticklish too, Castle. What were you saying?" He grumps loudly.

"That's not fair. You've got the gun and the heels and the training and I don't have any advantage at all."

"You can have the broken ribs plus all of that, if you like."

"Okay, I'll pass."

"Besides which," her tone changes to sultry, "you do have one enormous advantage." She runs a very insinuating look down his body and stops at his thighs. The advantage to which he is sure she's referring springs into life. "A huge…" she pauses… "loft." All his advantages subside. She's snickering. It's not fair.

"See if I wash your back for you again if that's how you behave, Beckett," he sulks. "Wha – where are you going?" She's creakily turning to drop her magnificent legs over the side of the bed and standing up. No no no. That's not the plan. Get with the program, Beckett. The one that involves him cuddling her and keeping her in bed for most of the day, even if all they can achieve is heavy petting, making out and occasional and very careful forays round third base.

"Wash. Dress. Coffee." She smiles naughtily. "After that… who knows?"

"Bath wash or shower wash, Beckett?"

"Why?"

"I'm going to wash your back. You can't."

"Could so."

"Could so? Really? Without needing those pain pills straight afterwards?" Beckett flushes. "Thought not." He widens his eyes and adopts a pathetic tone. "Didn't I wash your back nicely earlier? Don't you want me to wash it again?" He slides off his bed and comes round to stand in front of Beckett far faster than she can manage to stand up, takes her by the waist and firmly helps her, brooking no argument. She growls, warningly. "No, Beckett. I told you, you don't get to hurt yourself." The growl turns to frustration. He cuddles her in, and strokes right down the line of vertebrae. "Now, we can have a shower together, and I'll wash your back, or you can have a bath, on your own, and I'll wash your back. I think we're out of lilac bath salts, though. You might have to use mine."

"Shower. And no more funny business."

"Why, Beckett, I am shocked. _Shocked_ , I say. I am most profoundly and deeply" –

"Redundancy, Castle" –

"For effect, Beckett – shocked, that you would think that. Especially when all the funny business was started by you."

"Me?"

"You. You started it with your wandering hands before the alarm even went off."

"You started it on the couch. And after my bath. So you started most of the funny business."

"Your turn next time, then." Beckett splutters and chokes on that. "I wouldn't want to be doing all the work."

She goes purple, splutters more, and glares ferociously in default of words. He pats her happily on the head, to improve the moment further. This business of her _not_ being able to twist his nose or ear is really very good. He'll suffer for it later, but that's later. Right now, he's painfully aware that he's naked, she's naked, and they are pressed rather too close together for comfort. He summons all his muscle control, and walks them in the direction of the shower. The shower is big enough to share.

Beckett squeaks when the shower gel hits her skin. Okay, maybe it was just a little bit mean not to warn her that it's cool. But a massage is just what she needs, at a perfect temperature. He rubs the gel into her neck and back, carefully over the bruises, more forcefully as he reaches unmarred skin, working out any remaining knots of tension and pain with firm fingertips and strong thumbs. She purrs contentedly and pushes back into his movements, soft and slippery and soaked. His hands slow as they move round, oh-so-gentle across the violent splashes of livid, lurid colour over her ribs, delicately sensuous over her small, firm breasts, which fit beautifully neatly into the cups of his palms. This shower is not-so-slowly becoming a seduction.

Errant hands slip and slide – it must be the soap – lower: waist to hip to thigh to knee to ankle and back up. She's not snarking now. Her breathing is a smidgeon deeper, but there's no hint of distress. His thumbs glide over the juncture of her thighs, a tiny touch of pressure, a small suggestion that she should widen her stance – and she _does_ – her eyes now heavy, sleepy; her lips a little open, full and ripe to be kissed. He's entirely unable to reject _that_ invitation, and he doesn't even try. One hand runs up her spine and into the soaked hair at her nape. He simply stands in the spray of the shower kissing her as the soap runs off her body, and she smells of his body wash, so just a little of him and it's unbearably sexy; and quite without him thinking about it or meaning to do it his other hand is cupping her and finding heat and liquid and need and she's backed up against the shower wall and beginning to mewl.

He wasn't going to do this, he thinks, as his fingers flicker over and through and across her slick body. They were going to have a pleasant but efficient shower – really they were – and then he'd thought that some comfortable, caffeinated cosseting would be the order of the next little while. He really, really wasn't going to do this – but it's the best shower _ever_ and the only problem is that third base is out of reach. He decides that he hates Beckett's broken ribs even more than broccoli, and very reluctantly stops playing with her to wash himself. He should turn the water to cold, but he's not that mean, or masochistic. She squeaks crossly when he stops.

"Why've you stopped, Castle?"

"Because I can't put you up against the shower wall without puncturing your lung and – and if you _don't stop doing that_ " – he says hurriedly in a fine falsetto squeal – " that's exactly where you'll end up."

"I hate broken ribs," Beckett growls, but takes her hand away. "Worse than Ryan for getting in the way."

"What?" He watches with considerable interest and amusement as Beckett turns a deep shade of lobster red from head to cleavage.

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing." He smirks. "Does that mean that secretly you've been as frustrated by their timing as I have?"

Beckett looks sheepish. Specifically, a whole flock's worth of sheepish-looking. She's also still blushing, which is drawing Castle's attention to the excellent form of her breasts. Following the spread of colour with his eyes, that's what it is. She peeps almost shyly at him through her lashes.

"You have!" Castle bounces happily. "I knew it!" He beams widely down at her. "It was the vampire case, wasn't it?"

Beckett peeps up again, and doesn't answer. The blush has reached her waist. She makes a break for freedom in the form of exiting the shower, rather spoilt, Castle notes, by a certain amount of remaining caution in her movements. Still, it's better than it was, which he attributes to his excellent massage skills and the hot water. There's only one tiny problem, which he's just noticed. So, it seems, has Beckett.

"Castle, where are the towels?" Beckett is standing dripping on the bathmat and while that's a very attractive sight (at least, it would be if it weren't for the splashed-on bruises all over her) she's already starting to shiver.

"Um…" Castle bounds out of the shower. Beckett casts an obvious glance at his jiggling assets and sniggers, not quietly. He ignores her with lordly indifference and hopes he isn't blushing. The tenor of her snigger suggests that he is. "They're on the bed."

"Have you any others?" Castle is recalled to his senses from the sea of embarrassment in which he's drowning. "Oh – yes. Here." He delves into a cabinet under the vanity and gives Beckett the towel he finds. Then he realises that there are no more towels. Fortunately, there is a robe. He wraps the robe round his body and then wraps himself round Beckett, who is obviously chilled despite the towel. Pleasingly, she cuddles in. He has a – another – brilliant idea, pulls the robe open and from between them, and swirls it round them both. Okay, there is still a towel between them, but that's possibly a sensible security measure right now. It's all getting a little too explosive for comfort – not that Castle is comfortable – and he really cannot bear it if Beckett were to be damaged any more. He reflects rather ruefully that it's not like him to be the voice of reason in their partnership, but he supposes that there is a first time for everything.

Eventually, he stops holding her and gently rubs her dry. The towel stays on throughout. No sense tempting fate.

"Run and get dressed, Beckett."

"Run?" She quirks an eyebrow. "Lurch, more like."

"I think you're more like Morticia. Sexy in a very dangerous way." That's stopped the incipient argument.

"I don't quite see you as Gomez. Maybe Thing." Castle splutters. "Always touching things you're not supposed to."

Castle grins wickedly. "Does that include you, Beckett? Because I seem to be touching you quite a lot recently." Ooohh, he loves it when she blushes and gets all flustered and wiggles. Especially since she's wiggling in his arms. His adoration spills over into a kiss on the tip of her nose which has magically become a kiss on her infinitely kissable lips which is already turning into plundering possession of her entire mouth and it's incendiary: she's a firestarter and he's the tinder and together they _blaze_.

He simply invades. She's there and she's his and there's nothing in their way (except one broken and two cracked ribs) and if she'll stay his then he'll be hers, forever and ever.

He only, reluctantly, stops raiding and ravaging when it becomes only too clear that if he doesn't then the next stop will be the bed. Beckett is doing nothing whatsoever to calm matters down and really, anyone would think that she doesn't care about her ribs because the way she's behaving it seems she wants to incite him to complete insanity. When _did_ he become the sensible one? Yet again, he detaches her incredibly naughty hands from his body, puts up with the terrifying growl and scowl that this causes, and – because he really cannot resist even though he knows he's going to die for doing it – turns her round by the shoulders, gives her a tiny little shove in the direction of the bedroom, and follows it up with a very gentle swat at her swaying backside. She squawks. He sniggers.

And then she turns back to him and her eyes are hot and dark and huge and is it possible that kickass Beckett _likes_ him patting that entirely glorious ass? Because it certainly looks like it. She's undulating back towards him and yes it's still a little constrained and tight but _ohhhh_ he could watch her prowl for hours, or days, or weeks, or centuries.

"What was that, Castle?" she purrs darkly. "More of your inappropriate touching?"

He didn't tell his arms to stretch out and catch her. He didn't tell them to draw her in against him, either. And he certainly didn't instruct his hands to rest on her rear and hold her tightly so she's pressed into his strained, rock-hard body and there's no way she's moving from there till he's ready to let go. Which at this point might be in fifty years' time, and then only if one of them is actually dead. He didn't tell his fingers to slip down and through and stroke, but they are, and he didn't tell his other hand to support the leg that's wrapped itself round his waist so that she's open to him – opened herself for him and she's into this, she's into him, and _fuck_ he'd begun to believe it would never happen, up till a serial killer tried to take _his_ Detective Beckett away from him. Because he is life-changingly into her.

He can't stop touching her, now he's started again. Can't stop stroking over wet heat and soft folds and slick flesh. Can't stop holding her in only just shy of too tight (and when she's not hurt they'll find out where too tight really lies) so that he's heavy and full against her stomach and pressing in. Can't stop kissing her, flicking over a spot that makes her mewl and nipping on it till she's breathing hard and making little sexy half moans and pushing her hips into him. Can't stop teasing her, his fingers slipping inside, outside, taking her and taking her up. Can't stop himself lifting her to sit on the edge of the vanity, and then balancing her there and replacing fingers with his own hard length and she sighs out a dirty, erotic moan that'll echo in his ears and mind for hours – until he makes it happen again – and lets him balance her there and move her slowly as she gives in to the necessity of letting him do everything and gives herself up to him.

"Now that's how you achieve inappropriate touching, Beckett."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	11. Chapter 11

**11: Till the end of time**

Beckett nips his shoulder, not particularly gently, in rebuke.

"Now I need another shower," she points out. Castle smiles happily.

"What a good idea," he drawls, smiling lazily.

"Alone." The smile falls off his face.

"You're no fun," he grumps. "I could wash your back."

"You supposedly washing my back is what got us here," Beckett reminds him, and slips a hand down to point her moral. Not that morals have figured much in the morning so far. Immorals (is that even a word, he wonders, and decides that it is if he wants it to be), on the other hand, have figured very largely. He slips out of her, and steps a fraction back, and lifts her down. She probably doesn't need it, but he wants to. He just wants to keep touching her.

"Out."

It's _his_ bathroom. How is he leaving _his own bathroom_ just because Beckett ordered him out in that particular tone of voice that goes straight to his hindbrain and leaves him mentally paralysed? It's not fair. The shower is going on behind him.

"Close the door, please."

And that's not fair either. If he can't touch, he should at least get to watch. Still, he is a decent man, and he'd better start remembering it. He closes the door gently and gathers up the towels as a displacement activity, putting them in the washer and then deciding that he'd better add his robe once he's showered again.

Beckett doesn't take long, but one look at her face tells Castle that she's tweaked her ribs in the shower. Discretion being the better part of valour, he doesn't comment, but notes that he's going to have a shower – by himself, and she's not allowed to peek at his sculpted body – and then he'll make some lunch and more coffee. She's still making disgusted noises at his arrogance when he closes the bathroom door.

When he comes out, cleaned, Beckett's sitting on the couch in her own clothes, and a t-shirt of his is lurking by the washer.

"You could have kept the t-shirt on, Beckett."

"Nah. I don't want to smell of Paco Rabanne."

"Paco Rabanne? _Paco Rabanne_?" Castle squeaks with indignation. "Do you know _nothing_ about male grooming?"

"Why would I? I'm neither male nor acquainted with many men who have time for primping and pampering?"

"That scent is not Paco Rabanne." He humphs. Paco Rabanne is for a different sort of man. Esposito, perhaps. Ryan probably uses Brut, just like he likely did when he was sixteen. "That is Ambre Topkapi." Beckett looks completely blank. She has no appreciation of fine men's fragrance. "I know you like it," he says provocatively as he sits down next to her. "Your nostrils flare a fraction when I'm wearing it."

"Trying not to sneeze, Castle." She wrinkles her nose at him to try to convince him.

"Liar," he grins, and puts an arm round her. He looks down at her hands, removes his arm, bounces off and bounces back again shortly. He keeps his hand behind his back, and goes to make coffee and food. Beckett stays firmly curled on the couch and refuses to move, which is just as well because it means that Castle doesn't have to risk his life by telling her not to. He makes them both lunch, and brings it over.

"Why have you grabbed my arm, Castle?" Beckett says accusingly.

"It's missing something."

"Huh?"

"Needs something on it. A bracelet. I could get you one. All sparkly with little pink charms to suit your girlish personality."

"Detectives do not wear sparkly bracelets," Beckett muses dangerously. "On the other hand" – Castle sniggers – "they frequently cause others to wear cuffs." She glares.

"Ooohhhh. Will you wear them too?"

"No."

"You're no fun."

"No. Now take your hand off my arm. I need it for eating my lunch."

"I could feed you. Very romantic."

"If it weren't grilled cheese. Grilled cheese is not romantic."

"You forgot something when you got dressed."

"No, I didn't. Despite your obvious hopes I am fully clothed." Castle pouts.

"You did."

"No, I went upstairs to my room and got dressed. In a full set of clothes."

"Can I check? After all, you've forgotten one very important thing. You might have forgotten others." He looks helpfully hopeful. Or hopefully helpful. Neither works on Beckett, who is rapidly acquiring her usual air of irritated bemusement at his insanity.

"What have I forgotten, then?" she snaps.

"This," Castle says, produces her father's watch, and proceeds to fasten it on her wrist. Aw, hell. That was a mistake. He should at least have waited until she'd eaten some lunch. She stares at it and at his hand putting it on and her eyes are brimming.

"Oh," she breathes, and brings her other hand up to cover his fingers, working to fix the watchstrap round her wrist.

"No more crying, Beckett. You wouldn't want to ruin all my hard work to get it fixed, would you?" She shakes her head, and sniffs. A drop splashes on their linked hands. "Come here." He guides her head into his shoulder and cuddles softly for the moment or two it takes her to recover. He'd never realised just how much the tangible evidence of her father's victory had meant to her, till now. And yet she'd said that he was more important.

"Castle…" It's all she seems able to say. "You…" She sniffs damply again. "You…" Her hand is clamped over his and there's no way he could move it even if he wanted to. Her pulse is leaping under his fingers. He keeps her in his arm where she's safe and comforted. She's been zigzagging emotionally for all the time she's been here but he knows her: he knows how to deal with her like this. Be with her, hold her, just be there for her. She needs stability and strength and he is both stable and strong. And so he holds her close and firm, not tightly but so very obviously there, and waits patiently till she should have gathered her roiling thoughts and emotions.

"You always know," she sniffles. "How do you always know what to do?" Castle hears _for me_ unspoken at the end of that sentence.

"You're my partner," he murmurs into the top of her head. "Of course I know you." He adds a kiss. "And you're my friend." Another kiss, and his arm closes her in a little. "And you're my girl," he adds mischievously, and awaits developments, which arrive swiftly in the form of a splutter.

"Your girl?" But under the normal Beckett snark there's another note: a little uncertainty, a little hope, a little something else that he sees in his mirror most mornings.

"My girl," he says definitively. "Unless you're about to tell me you're only using me for my nightmare-banishing qualities and stunningly handsome body?" He tips her face up and pouts exaggeratedly. "How could I possibly bear being misused so, Beckett?"

"No," she says quietly. "No. How could you think that?" She's stiffened in his arms.

"Too soon?" She nods, wordless. "Sorry, Beckett. I've never thought that." And relaxation. He kisses her forehead, and then softly on her lips. "Come here." He picks her up and settles her into his lap. Her hand is running over her watch, over and round and over and round; she's staring at it, large on her slim wrist: it doesn't really suit her but he thinks she can't _not_ wear it; he's only seen her without it when they went to the fundraiser and these last few days. His fingers slip on to hers again, stopping the movement by curling through hers and interlinking, a small reminder that she needn't do this alone.

She wriggles a little, not seductive but simply getting close, carefully tucking herself into him, still with her fingers intertwined with his, and her head rests on his shoulder where she really ought to have it all the time they aren't actually on a case, because it fits very nicely there.

"You okay, Beckett?" She snuffles a very little and doesn't answer, still tracing circles round her watch face and staring down at it. "C'mon. Can't have my girl dripping like a watering-can. It'll be okay."

"Not a girl," Beckett mutters, crossly.

"No, but 'my woman' is a bit antediluvian for me. Modern man, here."

"Not if you're using that ridiculously possessive phrase. It's not modern at all. It's nearly as old as you."

Castle pouts some more. "I'm not old. Mature."

Beckett snorts, swinging back to snark and snippiness again, just as Castle had intended. "Mature? You? The man with toy helicopters in his study and light sabres under the bed?"

"They're not under the bed. They're in the closet. I don't want light sabres in the bed. My own… sabre… is quite enough." He wiggles his eyebrows. Beckett snorts disgustedly. "Anyway. I'm mature. Experienced. And" – he stops, waiting for some reaction, which arrives in the form of an exasperated sigh of very Beckett familiarity – "if I say you're my girl, then you are. So just snuggle in and enjoy it."

"So I'm your girl, Castle." Ah. That sounds like a threat. "Really? Where _exactly_ did you get that idea from?" He's about to speak when her hand moves. "Was it the bit when I" – ohhhhh, her voice has slipped from stern to sultry – "sneaked into your bed and _wasn't_ sleepwalking? Or maybe it was when I kissed you?" Sultry turns to scorching. "Or maybe when I did this?" Ohmigod. Oh fuck. Ohmigod. Don't _do_ that, Beckett, or she'll be flat on her back naked in his bed.

"All of the above," he squeaks.

"Good," she purrs. "Seems like I am your girl." And she puts her head back on his shoulder and closes her eyes. This means that she can't see him opening and closing his mouth like a demented ventriloquist's dummy, which is possibly just as well. It's not a flattering expression.

"You're my girl?"

"Didn't I just say so? But if you go into burning buildings without me again to recover _things_ , I will shoot you. And then I'll ditch you for total idiocy."

"Aw, Beckett. I _knew_ you liked me. Threatening to shoot me is just so romantic. It's just like Sally in second grade."

"Girls threatened to shoot you in second grade?" Beckett sounds boggled.

"Well, at that age it was mostly throwing spitballs. But it's the same idea."

Beckett appears to have exhausted her always-limited supply of conversation, and remains nicely snuggled up. Castle takes the opportunity to keep her tucked in, and the opportunity to finish his lunch, which is now cold, and then the opportunity to annoy Beckett by reminding her of her unfinished lunch. From the faces she's making, she's either no longer hungry, or doesn't like cold grilled cheese. Or both, perhaps. Still, she chokes it down. Unsurprisingly, the cold coffee doesn't get a similarly unhappy reaction. That goes down with alacrity.

"More coffee, Beckett? Or ice-cream? Or both?"

"Coffee, please." He'd have taken her back to the ER if she hadn't wanted coffee. "Not ice-cream. I've had enough." Castle looks at the top of her head. He doesn't think she has eaten enough, but maybe it's just all the emotions filling up her stomach. Anyway, if she says she's had enough it's not his business to interfere. He stands her up so he can stand up, and then lowers her down again.

"I think I can do it myself," she says. "Go make the coffee and I'll practice." Castle pads off as requested and tries to ignore the noises behind his back. He's doing really well at the ignoring part, massively helped by the noise of the coffee grinder blocking out everything, when he hears a much louder and definitely _not_ coffee grinding noise, whips round and finds that Beckett is suddenly snow white. Not Manhattan snow, either. Pristine white Antarctican snow, freshly fallen. Metaphors are not helpful right now.

"What have you done?" He's already across the room to her before he's finished speaking.

"I" – she breathes harshly in – "lost my balance" – another scraped breath – "and sat down too fast." And another. "Fuck, Castle, that hurts."

"I think we'd better get you back to the ER," Castle says calmly, belying his frantically skipping pulse and worry. "You might have done something to the break. Let's get it checked out."

When Beckett doesn't _argue_ and simply nods he's even more worried. She was arguing when she'd just been blown up, and she argued after Dunn dropped on her and broke her ribs. And now she isn't arguing and she is breathing very shallowly and she is still white and in obvious pain. Castle lifts her up to standing, helps her shuffle to the elevator and into his wide and extremely comfortable Mercedes, and delivers her to Bellevue – again! – with a minimum of trouble and a maximum of avoiding potholes, bumps, and anything pain inducing. Thank heavens for the car's excellent suspension.

The doctor looks indifferently at Beckett in the waiting room, pulls up her notes, and then scowls blackly at her. "Not you again." He glares. "You were told not to do anything strenuous for three weeks. What have you done?" Then he glares at Castle, which is entirely unfair. "You were told to make sure she didn't do anything strenuous. What have you done?"

"Nothing!" Castle says. Beckett being apparently unable to speak, he carries on. "She lost her balance and sat down too fast and then she went white like this and so I thought we'd better come in and because she didn't argue I knew something was really wrong." He runs down. The doctor has stopped glaring.

"Okay. So you did something sensible. Ms" –

"Detective!" is hissed from below him.

" – Beckett," the doctor carries on, unfazed, "it's another X-ray for you. Could you perhaps avoid any more potential breakages? There are limits on how many times we need to use your ribs as a training exercise for new interns, and there are no frequent-flyer miles or quantity discounts available on your health plan." Castle knows the doctor is joking, and admires his dry humour. Beckett, from the fulminating look in her eyes, is not so impressed. "Take your necklace off, please."

"Castle…Will you keep it?" She takes the necklace off, and then, though she hasn't been asked to, her watch too. "And this. Just in case."

"Sure. I'll keep them safe for you." He doesn't joke or rag her. It doesn't seem… helpful. She's taken off to X-ray, again, while he merely gets to sit in the waiting room. This is getting very tedious. Now she's his girlfriend – he smiles sappily – he'll at least have some chance of looking after her one day per year, which is a bit better than the no days per year he's previously been permitted. He'd better not mention that, because he's been looking after her for at least five days now and she might ration him, in which case he'd better start planning for 2015 to be his next opportunity.

He sits in the waiting room and observes the organised mayhem around him. It seems to be centred around the same bossy nurse who had been on duty last time, whose descriptive language is still blisteringly brightly coloured. He amuses himself in the same way as last time by plotting a scene where Nikki is faced with a nurse who is even more strong-willed than Nikki, but regretfully realises that it is unlikely to be usable when it begins to descend into a wrestling match in an examination room with Rook ending up being stabbed with a sedative-filled needle. Panic always makes his mind a little jumpy, and he is definitely worried about Beckett. Fortunately she is returned to him not much later, and undoped.

"No further damage, Mr Beckett. Your wife has been very lucky."

"Sorry?" Beckett had called him Castle. Why did the doctor think he's Mr Beckett? Don't they listen?

" _What_?" That's Beckett, of course.

The doctor looks a little nonplussed, and then embarrassed. "Sorry. I thought… I assumed you were her husband." There's an uncomfortable pause.

"She's staying with me. Her apartment blew up. We're not…" – he gulps – "married." But it's a very good thought. It lodges in the front of his brain and blocks any other thoughts.

"We're partners," Beckett says. That's a phrase that can be interpreted in a number of ways. The doctor looks relieved that he's not got it completely wrong. Castle improves the impression by putting Beckett's chain back on for her and, not incidentally, tracing fingers over her neck.

"C'mon, then, partner," he says. "Let's go home."

"My watch," she says, a little petulantly, and holds out her hand. Castle takes it, and buckles the watch back on. He doesn't let go of her hand once he's done. Her fingers twitch under his, but don't pull away. The doctor looks at the pair of them knowingly, and says nothing.

"Take Ms" –

"Detective" –

"Beckett away, please. And this time, Detective, please try not to come back here for at least" – he stops, and considers, and grins at her – "oh, a week? That would be a record." Castle watches Beckett half-smile, reluctantly. "Take some painkillers when you get home, and rest. And you, Mr" – he pauses.

"Castle." –

"you take care of her. Since she obviously won't. I don't want to see either of you again." That's just fine. Castle doesn't want to see the doctor, the bossy nurse, or the inside of the ER again either, however many stories he might make up.

"Let's go, Beckett. Before you break something else. Carrying you is one thing. Carrying half a ton of plaster cast and you is another."

"I didn't break anything."

"Sounds like that's just good luck. Maybe you shouldn't practice standing up and sitting down for another few days, if you can't balance." He smiles happily at her. "I'll help you. I'll make sure that you go up and down as often as you like."

Beckett turns bright scarlet, and Castle sniggers. A silenced Beckett is not a common occurrence, and he's quite enjoying his momentary triumph. He reinstalls her in the car and smoothly takes them both home, where he reinstalls her on the couch, produces water and painkillers, stands over her while she takes them, grumbling all the while and – he thinks, he's getting to recognise that particular cadence and sub-vocalisation – swearing under her breath in Russian.

"The doctor told you to take them."

"They're horse pills. And they make me sleepy."

"The doctor said rest, too. So take them, Beckett, and then I'll tuck you into bed for your rest."

"I can tuck myself in. Anyway, I don't need to go to bed."

"You need to lie flat and not strain yourself. So go to bed and lie flat in comfort." He only just doesn't say _go through to my bed_. Seconds later he's very glad of that.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	12. Chapter 12

**12: Time's a wastin'**

"Dad, Dad – hi, Detective Beckett – Dad, I'm going over to stay with Paige tonight, okay?"

"Okay," Castle says, thinking that it's very fortunate that he had let go of Beckett on hearing the outer door open, as answering a series of interested questions about why he was holding her at all was not in the plan. "Usually you just call. What's different?"

"I needed some books I didn't have," Alexis says rapidly, and disappears up the stairs in a missing-vital-study-time rush. "And you need to sign a permission slip for the camping trip next week, and pay for it," she adds as she returns equally quickly.

"I did that weeks ago."

"No, that was a different trip. That was the trip to the forensic lab on Monday."

"When do you ever actually do school work in school? You spend all your time on trips," Castle grumbles.

"You just want to go to the forensic lab yourself," Beckett points out sardonically from the foot of the stairs, where she is avoiding the Alexis whirlwind. "It's all because Lanie won't let you play with her toys." Alexis snickers, and exits. Castle humphs.

"It's not fair," he says sulkily. "I'd be careful. I'm sure I'd be useful."

"Well, she has seen you round the precinct," Beckett smirks, but then takes a slightly deeper breath than she should have and Castle can see the wince from the other side of the room.

"Upstairs, Beckett. Now." It's not until after she raises an eyebrow that he realises he's – oh god, he _is_ about to die – given her an order. "I-didn't-mean-it-like-that. Please go and rest like the doctor said?" She lowers the terrifying eyebrow and edges up the stairs. She's really sore around the ribs, he can tell, still breathing shallowly. Some few moments later she returns, which he really had not expected, with a book.

"I can't lie down and be comfortable," she complains.

"I thought you were going to sleep?"

"Naps are for babies and toddlers. I might not move any faster than a toddler right now but I'm not napping." Castle looks at the drawn lines of her face and the crease in her forehead and thinks very privately and quietly that whatever Beckett thinks she doesn't need, she'll be asleep on his shoulder before another hour is out.

"Come and sit down," he says instead. "If you tuck yourself into the corner, the couch'll prop you up." She flicks him a quick, uncertain glance. "I'm going to get my laptop. I can write here too, you know. But you have to promise not to peek. No spoilers, Beckett. Not even for you."

"Why won't you prop me up?" she asks petulantly. "You're comfy." Ah. Painkillers kicking in _already_ , Beckett?

"Because I type with two hands. Not like your hunt-and-peck with two fingers variety. I can touch type." He really thinks she's about to stick her tongue out at him. Sadly, she thinks better of it before he can comment. He installs her in the corner, collects both his laptop and a book in case inspiration should fail him, sits down next to her and then hoists her magnificent legs up over his lap.

"What d'you do that for?"

"Well, Beckett," he says wickedly, "new research proves that men shouldn't have laptops on their laps. Damages their assets. You wouldn't want me to have damaged assets, would you?"

"So it's okay for _me_ to be damaged?"

"I don't think that's likely, Beckett. Not unless you're a medical miracle. There is nothing in your legs that's going to be damaged. And the laptop will keep them warm." He smiles slowly and wickedly. "I wouldn't want your legs spoiled," he murmurs, and strokes a hand over them.

Beckett retires behind her book. Castle turns to his laptop and is soon lost to anything other than his fictional world, himself soothed and inspired by the warm weight of Beckett's legs over him and her soft presence next to him. Soft, that is, in a rather metaphorical sense. She's as taut as whipcord and as sharp as a sword, but next to him and – he casts a discreet glance sideways – half asleep, she's softer. It's a nice change, though he wouldn't like it all the time.

When he next looks up, she's asleep, the book fallen on her lap, her head on the back of the couch, quiet, slow breathing and her face smoothed out and peaceful: younger and softer than she ever is on duty. Dark hair spills around her head, and Castle reaches out to touch it, remembering how it feels against his face and shoulder. Stroking her hair leads to stroking her cheek, when she emits a funny little noise and presses into his hand.

The laptop is put aside, he rearranges himself and stands with her still in his arms, and conveys her to his room and bed. She seems to like it there, and besides which he can't carry her upstairs without her waking. He'll suffer the inevitable argument later. He does resist the temptation to undress her. That would be creepy. He takes her watch off, and the chain, and puts them on the nightstand; removes her shoes. He wouldn't want the bed linen dirty. And then he summons all his self-control (minimal) and self-preservation (maximal) and leaves, closing the door gently behind him.

He's making dinner when he hears ominous movements behind him.

"Why was I in bed?"

"You were asleep."

"I didn't want a nap."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you fell asleep," Castle says annoyingly.

"You should have woken me."

"What, so you could shoot me? I didn't want to die today." He doesn't. He thinks that he's very likely to have a Beckett snuggled up to him tonight, and he doesn't want to miss out on that. So much nicer than the teddy bear he'd had when he was small. Though given that she's coming to him for comfort maybe he's the teddy bear? He casts a quick glance at his midriff. No, it's still perfectly toned and his biceps firm. Definitely not squishy. Other bits need not be squishy either.

Beckett is peering round him at the counter. "What's all that?"

"Food, Beckett. This is food in its natural state, before it's cooked. Have you seen real food before?"

"Yes," she snips. "Of course I have."

"Just wondering. I couldn't have told from your fridge the other day…" his sentence trails off as he remembers that there is no longer a fridge, or the Styrofoam temple he'd teased her about. From the look on her face she's remembering that too. He turns round and hugs her.

" 'S okay, Castle. What's for dinner?" He can take a hint when he's hit in the face with it.

"Chicken chasseur, salad, rice. Ice cream."

"Sounds good. Can I help?" Castle strangles his instinct to say _no, just rest, let me do everything_ , or alternatively _you never cook and I'm not letting you practice on me_ and passes her mushrooms and a small knife. Then he watches open-mouthed as Beckett turns them into perfectly evenly sliced mushrooms in no time at all.

"How… what… where did you learn to do that?"

"Friend who's a chef. She taught me." She smirks smugly. "You thought I couldn't boil an egg, didn't you?" Castle nods, sheepishly. "I _can_ cook, I just don't when we're on a busy case." She looks at the knife. "Nice equipment you've got here."

"All my equipment is top-class, Beckett," Castle leers.

"You can buy equally good equipment" – she twists her tongue round the last word to make it perfectly clear that she is not referring to kitchen knives – "in some very specialist shops." Castle's throat momentarily closes. Then he recovers.

"I'm sure you can. But nothing beats a skilled user."

"And you think you have the necessary… skills?"

Castle slowly runs a hot gaze up and down Beckett. "Oh, Beckett. We both _know_ I have the skills." That's better. She's blushing now. He runs a finger down her cheek, and stops it just at the corner of her lips. Her tongue peeps out, provocatively, so he slides the finger along the seam of her mouth, pressing just a tiny fraction, enough to pique her interest and darken her eyes. "Such a shame you have to take it easy for another couple of weeks." Her glare and splutter of rage would be worth a ticket price. "Still, anticipation is the best sauce."

"Sauce, darlings?"

"Mother?"

"Of course. Where else would I be eating if not in my" – Castle coughs, to no effect whatsoever – " _my_ own house." He gives up. There's a small amused snigger from Beckett's direction. "How are you feeling, Katherine?"

"Better, thank you." Beckett's blank interrogation face is fully engaged. Castle has a feeling of impending dread as his mother smiles. That smile only appears when she's had a "good" idea.

"That's lovely, darling." He thinks he's the only one who can see Beckett's nails run into her palm at being referred to as _darling_. He might use that, later. "I was talking to some friends today" –

"Friends? Cronies, Mother. Besides which, you often tell me there are no friends in theatre. Your last comment on the subject was that you kept your competition close and your enemies closer."

"Friends," his mother says in Lady Macbethian tones. " _Anyway_ , Katherine" – Castle's feeling of dread intensifies – "one of them, Doug, is off touring in a week and needs an apartment-sitter, so I thought of you. I know how much you like your own space, so I told him you might be interested. This is his number, so you can talk to him." She looks thoroughly delighted with her good idea. Fortunately, Castle has turned away so his mother can't see his look of appalled horror. Beckett can't leave. Looking at her stunned expression, that wasn't what she expected to hear.

"That's… really interesting," she says, completely flabbergastedly. Castle looks at the shutters over her eyes and the white-knuckled grip of her hands out of sight and notes with crippling relief that Beckett is not at all happy at the suggestion. He is, for the first time he can remember in a very long time, really, _truly_ angry with his mother.

"Mother," he says, in icy tones, "don't you think that suggesting Beckett without even asking her was a little presumptuous? Beckett can stay here as long as she likes. This is _my_ apartment, whatever you think, and it's up to me and her how long she stays. Not you."

His mother bridles. "Well, I thought it was a good plan." She turns to Beckett. "Don't let Richard blackmail you into anything you don't want to do, darling." Beckett stabs her nails into her palm again. "He can be a little overwhelming."

"Don't let my mother blackmail you either, Beckett," Castle grits out. Beckett looks at both of them, and stands up.

"Excuse me," she says, and makes what looks to Castle like an escape from a situation that's rapidly escalating into a row. It's probably for the best.

"What did you think you were doing, Mother? You had no right at all to do that without speaking to Beckett."

"Oh, Richard. It's clear she doesn't want to impose. She's just being polite by staying." His mother looks at him far too closely. "Oh. I see. _You_ don't want her to leave. Have you tried asking her what she wants?"

"I'm sure Beckett would tell me if she didn't want to stay. Why are you trying to push her out? She's not borrowing your bedroom."

"I'm not pushing her out: I like Katherine. So much better company than your previous…friends. But Richard, she can't be comfortable here. You pushed her into staying" –

"She had nowhere else to go. What do you suggest I did? Let her go to a hotel with a mad serial killer after her?"

"Well, no, but Richard" –

" _No_ , Mother. For once in your life butt out of my business. I don't complain when you bring your _friends_ back, so stay out of it."

"It is my business when you're forcing the poor girl to stay here" –

"He doesn't need to." Beckett's clear, sharp tones cut through the impending explosion. "Castle knows what I think. I'm very grateful for your consideration, Martha, but I'm quite happy to stay here." She smiles, though Castle recognises the edge of danger in her expression.

"Oh. Well, if you're sure, Katherine."

"I'm quite sure, thank you." Castle gapes at Beckett. "Castle's been nothing but kind. If he's happy to let me stay, then I'm happy to." Beckett said what? His fury evaporates under her words. _His girl_. Sappy, but true. His heart skips a beat and then throbs happily in his chest.

His mother fusses and bustles and looks from one of them to the other. Suddenly her face clears. "Oh! You should have said, darlings! Now don't worry about me. I sleep like the dead. And Alexis wouldn't notice anything." She sashays off, much to Castle's relief. Beckett is sliding towards the couch, crimson from hairline to shirt.

"Is she always like that?" she says weakly. Castle sympathises. His mother is a force of nature. Possibly a hurricane. Actually, possibly a super-cell. He comes to sit with Beckett, who for once appears totally nonplussed.

"Yes. Ignore her. I always do." Beckett does not look reassured.

"I'm imposing. I'm in the way."

"No you are not. You said you were happy to stay and you're staying." He grins down at her worried face. "You're my girl. You agreed. So you're staying." He puts his arm round her shoulders. "Not that you can leave anyway."

"Oh?"

"Well…you can't move faster than a legless spider" – she squawks – "and you can't stand up while I'm hugging you, so all in all you're not going to make the door before I stop you. So you might as well stay here." He drops a kiss on her scrunched up nose before she can object further. She's not to get silly ideas in her head just because his mother can't keep her nose out. That's not the plan at all. "Now, I'll put dinner on and then shall we have a glass of wine?"

"Okay." He cuddles carefully and then stands up. It's a shame all the chopping is done. He'd like to take out his irritation on his mother's interference on some innocent vegetables. He drops all the ingredients for the chicken in the pot, adds rather more wine than usual to give himself an excuse for opening a new, very nice bottle from which he has _no_ intention of allowing his mother more than one very small glass, pops it in the oven and brings two glasses and the opened bottle of Gigondas with him.

"There you are."

"Thanks." Beckett takes a sizeable mouthful, and stops, regarding her glassful with some respect. "That's nice." Castle preens. She takes a smaller sip, savouring, running her tongue round her lips to taste the last drop. Castle abruptly feels somewhat constricted. It eases even more abruptly than it arrived when his mother swooshes down the stairs in an over-the-top outfit. (Are those turquoise sequins? On a purple dress? His head hurts.)

"I'm off, darlings," she carols brightly, with a very knowing look. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That only leaves genocide and incest," Castle mutters bitterly.

"I have some suggestions," Beckett murmurs in a sultry tone that his mother can't hear, "to take your mind off your mother." He's instantly distracted.

"What?" he murmurs back, sexiness dripping off each word as the door closes behind his mother. Phew. He returns an arm to Beckett's shoulders.

"Drink the wine, have a nice dinner, and indulge in civilised conversation about the latest movies," Beckett says briskly, and then dissolves in laughter at the no-doubt disappointed expression on his face. "You are so _easy_ , Castle."

"That's not fair, Beckett," he whines. "You made me think…"

"Mmhm," she hums happily.

"You'll have to make it up to me."

"Okay," Beckett says cheerfully, and has another sip of wine as Castle chokes. "I'll compliment your cooking."

He's left speechless. She will regret that. She really will. The only problem is that all the ways he might make her regret it right now are only going to deprive him of things that he likes, such as cuddles, snuggles, kisses and Beckett in his bed, where all manner of other activities are – carefully – available. When carefully is not the primary adjective – oh, then he'll make her regret every teasing, wicked piece of misdirection that she's inflicted on him. He'll enjoy every minute of it. So, of course, will she. They'll have all the time in the world, and _careful_ will not figure for a single second of it.

He could, however, have a little fun of his own. His fingers draw little circles on Beckett's upper arm, and then tip-tap over her collarbone, where they pause to draw little vertical lines which stop rather before they reach anywhere interesting. She sighs contentedly, and though her posture remains straight-backed – painkillers hours ago, or wine now, is clearly not quite enough to soothe her twinging chest – somehow she has become a little closer, and a little more relaxed. Which, Castle notes happily, has relaxed him. Right into a feeling that since dinner will take at least another three-quarters of an hour, they should use that time profitably. Profitably meaning some leisurely making out. He hasn't kissed her properly in hours.

So that's what he does: slips his hand round her cheek and turns her head to him, bends the small distance and lands lightly on her lips, traces across the small gap and when it opens and invites him in to play accepts with alacrity. Playtime is so much better with two.

There's a nastily insistent beeping invading his ears and disturbing them. It's not fair. They've only had a few… oh. That's the oven, and they've been making out for – er – quite a long time. Beckett's hair is untidy, and her shirt is open. So is his. Shirt and hair, in fact. Open and untidy. His hair couldn't be open. He should really take his hand off her waist. She should really take hers out of his shirt, but it feels so good against his skin that he wishes she needn't.

"We ought to have dinner," he points out. Beckett sighs.

"Suppose so, since we made it." She doesn't sound terribly convinced of the necessity.

"You have to eat."

"Unlike you?"

Castle growls at her. "I eat a balanced diet without any of those nasty synthetic preservatives. Fresh food and five-a-day, Beckett, and you too can have my finely honed, muscular body."

"And what exactly would I need to eat to have your body?" She didn't just say that, did she? Castle gobbles like a hyperactive turkey and fails utterly to manage any sort of response while trying to subdue the urge to ask Beckett to demonstrate. This is _unfair_. He's the one who's supposed to have all the words at his command.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._

 _To the guest who asked why Beckett's ribs are not strapped, I have to confess that I expected that they would need to be. However, when I did some research into broken ribs, it seems that strapping is no longer recommended for good medical reasons. I was surprised too!_


	13. Chapter 13

**13: Time and tide**

Castle barely makes it through dinner. He barely tastes his food, which is as delicious as it normally is. He barely tastes the wine, which is unheard of. He barely notices the world around him, in fact. His entire attention is focused on the thought of barely dressed Beckett. She has spent the whole of dinner winding him up. She has turned every sentence into a double-entendre; every mouthful of food into an invitation to sin. Worst of all, it's _worked_. All he can imagine are variants on the single sin of lust, and he has an _excellent_ imagination. This is so not fair.

"Coffee, Beckett?" he forces out.

"Yes, please." Phew. No more innuendo. He really cannot cope with more innuendo. He's barely – oh god, don't think _barely_ , all he can think of is _bare_. As in naked… naked… naked Beckett, oh god – coping as it is.

Beckett makes her way to the couch, her walk much closer to her normal swift-flowing stride. It would help if she wasn't still lowering herself with extreme care, but every little improvement relieves Castle's over-protective instincts. Unfortunately every little improvement stokes his over-primitive instincts. He tries to concentrate on the coffee. Caffeine might clear his head and lower his blood pressure. It certainly needs lowered in specific respects. And places.

Beckett, fortunately for Castle's thinning self-control, has stopped teasing him and is behaving in a relatively restrained fashion. Perhaps it's something to do with the way he had tucked her in and held on to her hands so that she couldn't take any further steps to provoke him. She was far too provocative, and then she had smirked like the Cheshire Cat with a whole dairy's worth of cream on tap. Gradually the scorching air around them had cooled and the oxygen quotient had risen to safe levels, luckily before he suffocated, anything flared up, or his family reappeared at an – er – embarrassing moment. Time passes, peacefully. Alexis comes home, her usual safe margin before curfew, downloads the evening's issues and successes and then wanders off to her own bed.

"More painkillers," Beckett eventually says, "before bedtime." Castle widens his eyes at her and considers whether batting his eyelashes would have any effect other than causing her to collapse in laughter and puncture a lung in the process.

"What?" Over the last half-hour, she's been quiet and thoughtful. He's left her to it, reckoning that if Beckett is processing matters then he'd better not interrupt. She'd traced the watch face over and over again, played with the ring on its chain, traced the watch face some more, played with the ring again, sliding it up and down, spinning it around.

"Bedtime?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow I really need to start looking for a new apartment." Castle swallows. "Even if I found one tomorrow, it's going to be a while before I can move in. Couple of weeks, minimum. Then I'll need to get furniture, which'll take a few days to get delivered. I'm not sleeping on the floor."

"You don't have to," Castle says pathetically. "Just stay here."

"I can't stay here for ever, Castle." He slams his throat shut around _yes you can. Yes you should_. "Besides which…" – she smiles blandly – "I like privacy." _Oh_. _Ooohhhh_.

"I can help you look," he says hopefully.

"Ye-es," Beckett says slowly. "I have a budget, Castle. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes," he says, with a slight edge. "I do. We lived on one for years." Beckett makes a _sorry_ sort of gesture, which alleviates his irritation.

"Okay. You can help, but you don't have to. I can manage."

"I'm helping," Castle says firmly. "So no sneaking off to the real estate agent without me." Beckett looks mildly mutinous. "No sneaking, Beckett."

"It's bedtime," she says. "I'm tired." She looks it, again. Must be the thought of apartment-hunting. It wouldn't be reasonable to put her off – but he wants to. She should stay here. He swoops down and kisses her thoroughly, then stands her up gently.

"Night, Beckett. Till tomorrow." She droops off, slowly dragging up the stairs, but with a set of her shoulders which shouts that help is not welcome. Doing it for herself. It's admirable, and appalling. He doesn't suggest that she should start the night in his bed, mainly because she appears to need some quiet time alone, but partly because he also thinks that she'll end up there anyway, so he doesn't need to force the issue.

Tonight, he doesn't bother pretending to be asleep. But midnight comes and goes without company arriving, and eventually even Castle's night-owl brain tells him it's time to give up and rest. He prepares himself for sleep: washed, teeth brushed, pyjama pants on, laptop powered down and safely on his desk. Stepping on it while he tries to drag himself into wakefulness would be dumb – and he's done it before. Klutziness is not sexy, in his opinion.

 _That_ , on the other hand, definitely is.

While he's been preparing for bed, Beckett has ghosted in and is now tucked on the side that Castle can definitely say she prefers, nearest the bathroom, furthest from the door – is that a tiny insecurity in confident, commanding Beckett? – eyes closed, dark hair spread. It's longer than it was even at Christmas, he notices, and recalls how it feels between his fingers, how, in a moment, it will smell as he curls himself protectively around her and nestles his nose against her neck. He allows himself a creepy staring moment which is halted when he detects a small trace of dampness on and under her lashes. He expects she's had another nightmare, and rapidly slips in beside her, lays a comforting arm over her midriff – oooohhh, something silky – and since Beckett is asleep, or at least nine-tenths so, ensures that he has snuggled suitably close for her comfort, if not his.

To his surprise, Beckett wriggles a little, moving his hand to rest over her heart – oh, _how_ is he supposed to resist temptation when it's right there and she's _put_ it right there – sniffs a tiny sniff, and speaks.

"I had another nightmare. It's pathetic."

"Not so," Castle rumbles soothingly. "To be expected. Just stay here, and it'll be okay. No more nightmares."

"I can't stay here for ever, Castle. I… I just can't. I don't do well with people around all the time. I need my own space. Somewhere to… stop."

Castle lies still. He'd noticed it, of course he'd noticed it, and not pushed in on her solitude – seems like that was just as well, because if he had it could have been disastrous – but how's he going to persuade her to be _with_ him if she can't cope with togetherness? She's still murmuring.

"It's okay when it's you," – _what_? Did he hear that right? – "but I just can't deal with _fuss_." Her nose and most of her head disappear into the covers and pillows. "There's always something happening here, and it's fine now, but I can't always..." She reappears, slightly. "That sounds so freaking ungrateful. I'm sorry. You've all been so kind and I'm intruding and…"

"Stop."

"and you got my watch back and my mother's ring and you've let me stay and" –

" _Stop_." This time it works. He puts on a sidelight, hoists himself on to an elbow and looks down at her. Well, her ear, which is not exactly informative. He very cautiously rolls her over to see her face in the soft illumination. "I get it." She acquires an uncertain, disbelieving expression. "I do. Why do you think I have an office, and my mother's room is upstairs? I need headspace to write. It's not like writing's a spectator sport." There's sudden, total relaxation under his arm and a large sigh of relief, followed by a small wince. He pets her, stroking along the curve of her waist. Suddenly she buries her head in his chest, which shortly acquires a small puddle of salt water.

"We'll go look for apartments tomorrow, Beckett." Her hand slips into his. "Find you something you like." He smiles sleepily at her. "Of course, I'll have to like it too."

"Why? It's me who'll be living there."

"It is I, Beckett. Good grammar is very impor – ow! That wasn't nice. Don't poke me in the ribs when I can't retaliate."

"Don't criticise my grammar at – ugh – one in the morning, then. Why do you need to _like_ my apartment?"

"Because I expect I'll spend a lot of time in it." Beckett rolls her eyes, distracted by his annoying tone. It always works to cheer her up. Or irritate her, which is often much the same thing and certainly will produce the right result just now. "After all, you're my girl. You said so."

"Was I on crack?" Ah, there's a comfortingly normal Beckett bite.

"I expect you were intoxicated by my manly presence." She pokes him in the ribs again. "Stop it. It's not fair to do that."

"I'm letting the air out of your over-inflated ego." But her hand curls around his more tightly, and she's still cuddled into his chest.

"You'll want me to spend time there." He returns to the main point, noting happily that she is not disagreeing with the thesis. "You might as well just give me a key straight away."

Beckett groans, then yawns. "Night, Castle." There's a very indistinct mutter which follows that, but it's so muffled by his pectoral that he can't make it out.

"Till tomorrow, sweetheart," he says, without thinking about it at all until after it's exited his mouth. Astonishingly, he appears still to be living. Astonishment reduces when he notices that Beckett has fallen asleep as suddenly and quietly as a baby, with her hand still interlinked with his. He arranges himself comfortably, doesn't let go of her, and slips peacefully into sleep.

* * *

Castle wakes to the sound of his alarm, grumps at it, and then realises that his bed is empty of Becketts and full of unwanted space. Then he realises that it's Sunday and he didn't need to wake, either, and grumps some more.

"You sound like a walrus," Beckett says. He jumps.

"Where were you? You sneaked off."

"Didn't. Went to the bathroom. Now I'm back. No sneaking." She eases back into bed. It's still cautious.

"You did sneak. You sneak far too much. In fact, thinking of sneaking, you shouldn't have been sneaking into my bed last night." Beckett flicks her head round to stare at him.

"What?"

"No more sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night." It's not until the colour and life drains from her face that he realises how she's taken it. He makes sure she's looking at his wide grin, and pats her shoulder. "You should sneak into my bed at bedtime, not wake me up in the middle of the night. Or preferably not sneak at all."

An unwilling grin spreads over her face in return. "Okay, Castle. No sneaking. But that means no sneaking by you either. No sneaking up to me and covertly" –

"So hot" –

"holding my hand; no sneaky snuggling up and pretending you're asleep when you do."

That's no fun at all, Beckett. Of course, it would be much more fun if he could simply – well, _pounce_ on her, pull her over and haul her in and _take the initiative_ but he can't do that while she's broken in body if absolutely not in mind. In fact, understandable emotional swings apart, she's in a better mental place than she's been in months: ever since Coonan, ever since last summer, perhaps. Maybe… maybe he really is good for her? He's always known – well, since he read her file – that he would be. So maybe… maybe she's seen it too, now? He really believes that she has. Finally.

"Okay. No sneaky snuggling. _Overt_ snuggling, instead." Beckett makes a disgusted snort and then sniggers.

"And this differs from sneaky snuggling how exactly?"

"I don't pretend I'm asleep."

"Huh," Beckett says meditatively. She – well, snuggles. Very slightly, but it's a snuggle. And then she closes her eyes firmly. "I'm asleep."

"No you're not."

"I am."

In which case, Castle is going to do some snuggling of his own. Non-sneakily. So he does. He slips an arm under Beckett's neck, the other over her midriff (again), and places his large frame between her and the door, since she seems to like that. She makes an indeterminate noise of contentment and, he finds, is in fact asleep immediately. If he'd had to bet, he'd have bet on her being insomniac. He guesses that was wrong, too. Or maybe it's just this week. He wriggles happily as he thinks that he'll – finally! – get the chance to find out. And then, since it is, after all, Sunday, he returns to dreamland himself.

It doesn't last, of course. He's woken by crashing and banging around the general vicinity of the kitchen, which he could ignore, but then it starts aiming for his office, which he can't. He doesn't think that Beckett particularly wants to be found in his bed by his mother, which is looking increasingly likely if he doesn't head his mother off. He heaves himself out of bed and wanders through to find out what's going on.

What is going on is initially unclear. His mother is still dressed in the eye-searing turquoise sequins on purple silk of last night. She appears to be drinking a Bloody Mary. She also appears still to be tipsy, at best. So far, so understandable. What Castle doesn't get is the man's briefcase locked to her wrist. The clanging and banging is explained, as his mother is trying to remove it with a meat mallet.

"Mother, what is going on?"

"Oh, Richard. This stupid briefcase won't unlock."

"Why are you wearing a briefcase, Mother?"

"I was auditioning." Castle raises his eyebrows. "There is an off-Broadway all-female production of The Thirty-Nine Steps being cast." With considerable difficulty, he preserves a straight face. "And they wanted me to wear this briefcase, but then they dropped the key and couldn't find it."

"And?" Castle asks, fascinated by the tale and already searching for a way to include it in a book. "You aren't exactly sober, Mother."

"Well, what would you do, darling? By the time we'd tried an all-night locksmith, we simply had to dull the pain with a little drink or two."

"Or five."

"Don't be rid-hic-ulous, Richard. Now, help me get this off so I can go to bed. I'm not sharing my bed with a briefcase." She hiccups again. "A nice stuntman, now" –

"Mother, that is an image I do not need in my head." Castle looks at the briefcase and the handcuff linking it to his mother. "Stop banging it with a mallet. Alexis is asleep."

"And what about Katherine?"

"I have no idea. But if she is asleep she needs it, so stop banging." He removes the mallet from her inept hand and inspects it. "You've dented it."

His mother harrumphs. "Anyone would think that your kitchen equipment was more important than my well-being."

"It costs less for greater pleasure," Castle mutters, and doesn't quite avoid a smack. "Do you want this briefcase removed or not?"

"Yes, darling. What are you going to do?"

"Get my universal key and unlock it." His mother is pleasingly silenced. It's even better when it _does_ unlock her, and she disappears upstairs, still clutching her Bloody Mary, in a cloud of flusteredly sarcastic thanks and much embarrassment. Castle returns to his bedroom buoyed up on a cloud of rather unworthy self-satisfaction and reflects that on normal form he now won't need to worry about his mother until late afternoon.

"Wha's goin' on," floats up from the pile of pillows burying Beckett. " 'M asleep. Shhh."

"You're not asleep, you're talking to me," Castle points out.

"Shhhhh." She pulls a pillow over her ear. It's adorable. But not so adorable that Castle doesn't want to show off his cleverness.

"I've been unlocking my mother from a briefcase," he bounces.

" 'M _asleep_. G'way." Another pillow covers her head. Then she emerges, gopher-like. "A _briefcase_?" She's all tousled and sexy. Gophers never look that desirable. He plops down on the bed next to her, only remembering that that's a bad plan after he's done it. Surprisingly, she doesn't wince.

"Are you feeling better?" he asks, distracted momentarily from the tale of the briefcase. Beckett stretches from toes to waist, then much more carefully from waist to shoulders, and then looks briefly (Castle sniggers at his own cleverness) and blissfully happy.

"It didn't hurt!" Castle has a sudden rush of blood to the – well, _not_ his head. Not the one on his neck, anyway.

"It didn't?" he purrs in a particularly predatory tone, and looms over her. Her eyes darken and sleepiness is replaced by a hot interest.

"No," she husks. "It didn't." He's hit her lips before the last _t_ has died on the air. He has _not_ , however, put any weight at all on her body, and when she reaches for his neck and pulls he doesn't move. This is not popular.

"Come here," she orders.

"Nope. Not leaning on you. You'll break."

She takes a very deep breath, no doubt preparatory to a new round of orders – it's so cute – and then squeaks, not cutely at all.

"Owwwwwwwwww," she exhales. "That…" – another, shallower, breath in, and out, and in again, slowly – "hurt." _Statement of the obvious there, Beckett._

"See. Still broken." Possibly the smug tone was a bad idea. Beckett is glaring ferociously at him. "Beckett, it's clear you can't resist my rugged body, handsome face, wit and charm" –

"Wanna bet, Captain Conceited?" –

"but I really think that you need to mend or we need to find a better way."

"I've gone off the idea. I hurt." She pouts. "This is not fair."

"You sound just like me. I knew I'd rub off on you eventually." Beckett quirks an eyebrow. "And when you're mended I'll rub off on you as often as you like." She makes a noise that, if it had had any breath behind it, might have been a groan. "But not till you're mended. I can't be responsible for your injuries. Esposito's going to kill me anyway for letting you go into the warehouse and Dunn dropping on top of you."

"Oh?" Beckett says dangerously. "Esposito thinks you should _look after_ me on the job, does he?" Castle suddenly realises that he's just dropped Esposito in it from around 50,000 feet, and… uh-oh, she's just got it. "And I suppose Ryan's in on this little babysitting club you're running too?" How can someone lying tousled in his bed in teeny little silky shorts and camisole top exude such terrifying menace so quickly? "How long has _that_ been going on?" He is going to be drummed out of the Men's Association. He really is. He's inadvertently broken the code. The code being _Don't Tell Beckett_. Oh, _shit_. That's put paid to snuggling. And possibly to life.

Beckett slides her legs out of bed and stands up. "I am going to shower and dress. Alone. And when I come back, you are going to explain this protection racket to me. In detail."

Oh, hell. They are all three of them so dead.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. All your thoughts are very much appreciated._


	14. Chapter 14

**14: Time for a change**

Castle, in default of a better idea, such as instant emigration to Fiji (he's sure it's nice there, and more importantly there aren't that many flights, though he'd miss football, baseball and basketball. He could learn to like rugby, he supposes, though it seems a bit…complicated) pulls himself together and spends a little extra time trying to work out how to get out of the mess he's got himself into, without the undesirable outcome of succeeding in defusing Beckett and then being killed by the boys, which wouldn't be success at all. Naturally, it doesn't work. He is no better supplied with good ideas when he's artfully mussed his hair, in order to look more than usually adorable, than when he stepped out of bed.

Instead, he makes coffee, adds some – hopefully bad-temper soothing – vanilla to Beckett's cup, and waits in trepidation. He can hear the shower running. He hopes, very strongly, that it's washing away the first flush of anger. And the second. And maybe the third, fourth and fifth as well. He'd _known_ that the three of them drunkenly deciding that they should take care of Beckett was a bad plan. He'd just liked the thought of her being hurt less than he liked the thought of her finding out about it. He may be on the point of discovering for himself whether he had his priorities right, he muses miserably. He can see the future and it involves pain.

The shower has stopped. A hairdryer has begun. This does not improve his mood. Grooming may well equal intimidation. Not that Beckett needs to be groomed to intimidate anyone. She just needs to look at them with that terrifying stare. She could be wearing denim cut-offs or an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini and intimidate the whole world around her. That was not a good thought, at this point. Thinking of Beckett in bikinis is not going to help. Oh _God_ , they are so dead.

The only reason the steps down the stairs are not the forceful clacking he is expecting is because it isn't Beckett. It's Alexis, about whom he had momentarily forgotten. Maybe her presence will protect him.

And maybe not. Alexis has a jacket over her arm and her purse. Alexis – _traitor_ , even if she doesn't know it – is clearly going out.

"Bye Dad. I'm off to meet friends. See you later." Not if Beckett has her way. All that Alexis will see is his cold dead corpse. Eviscerated. Right now he really wishes he hadn't researched gorily gruesome methods of killing, because he can imagine exactly how the victims felt. It's how he's going to feel in around – two seconds, because Beckett is arriving right now.

"So," she says, reaching the kitchen. "Start talking."

"Coffee?" he says hopefully, instead, and pushes the mug towards her. She takes it, which is at least a minor improvement on his feverish imaginings.

"Talk." He's not going to get out of this, is he? "And if you had any thoughts of protecting the other two, forget it. I'll be talking to them too." Dead. Definitely dead. And he hasn't updated his funeral arrangements in months. (It's a procrastination technique. Every time he can't think of how to kill off a character, he updates his funeral arrangements.)

"We're not babysitting you," he rushes out. An eyebrow rises. "It's just being your partner. Same as Espo looks after Ryan and vice versa."

"Ri-ight. So why _exactly_ will Espo kill you for _letting_ " – oh, ow, that carried more weight than a Giants linebacker – "me get hurt? Huh? I don't see you killing Espo – even if you could" – ouch, that's not kind, even if it's true – "if Ryan got hurt." She stops. Castle recognises the silence unfolding before him as that of the interrogation room. Unfortunately he is no more proof against filling it than the most incompetent of criminals.

"After Coonan," he starts, and stops again. "I wasn't any use, Beckett. Coonan got the drop on me and there was nothing I could do to stop him or to help or to find anything. So we got talking and we agreed that the others would do a bit of training with me so I'd be more use." He feels – and probably looks – hangdog. "But the deal was that I was supposed to be as near to you as Ryan would be to Espo. And I wasn't."

"I see," Beckett says coldly. "So you weren't any use with Coonan." Her eyes flare with – with that same fury as when he'd admitted going into her building after the watch? Huh? "No use? You broke his nose and gave me a clean shot. You put up a _hundred thousand dollars_ to try to catch the man who killed my mother – and we did, we just don't know why. You pointed Lanie at Dr Murray. Oh no, Castle. You weren't any use? You boneheaded idiot! What are you playing at? I should slap your stupid face silly for that. It might let a little light into your stupid thick head."

He reflexively ducks away. She's not done.

"Didn't you _get it_ when I told you I liked you pulling my pigtails? What part of _having you around makes it a little more fun_ didn't you understand? How dumb _are_ you? You don't need to be a bodyguard, you stupid dumb – man! I don't need a freaking bodyguard! And when I get my hands on those two idiots who gave you that idea _they'll_ need the bodyguard because I will have their guts for garters." Castle watches with amazement as she throws her hands up in a gesture of incandescent fury. "I can't deal with this level of idiocy," she yells. "No babysitting. No looking after me. If I tell you to stay in the car you stay in the freaking car, okay?"

"Nope."

"You do not get to say _nope_ to me." Castle thinks that the Atlantic may just part to allow Beckett to walk dry-shod to Ireland, should she tell it to in that tone.

"Actually, I do." Maybe he really does have a death-wish. "I'm not staying in the car if you're running into dangerous situations. I'm going too."

"I'm the cop. Not you. You don't get it. You do _not_ go running into dangerous situations and get hurt. Not on my watch."

"I mended your watch," Castle says unhelpfully.

"You, you overly chivalrous _idiot_ , went charging into a burning building to get me out and then went _back_ to get _things_ that don't matter. If you think I'm letting you do that again you're out of your non-existent mind. You will stay in the car where you can't get hurt."

"Shan't," Castle says childishly. "And you can't make me." Beckett turns an interesting shade of purple and looks as if she's about to explode.

"I can _so_ make you."

"Not any more. I'm wise to your handcuffing ways, Beckett – and all the training the boys have put me through has been very good for my strength. I don't think you can force me to stay in the car and I'm not going to." That's interesting. He didn't know that people could go that shade of scarlet-streaked purple and still live. He returns to the attack. "I don't like it when you get hurt, but I don't tell you to stay in the car, do I?"

"You're not a cop. I am. You are not going to do stupid things and take stupid risks and get hurt."

"I don't do stupid things." Beckett's mouth drops wide open. Castle takes advantage of her speechlessness. "I don't. And if you just stop and think for a minute rather than yelling at me you'll realise it." Her mouth opens and shuts and produces no sound at all. "Now what's really going on here?" He smiles widely and beautifully and angelically – and very, very irritatingly. "Oh, I get it," he says smugly. "You're _worried_ about me. Aw, Beckett, how sweet. You care."

"Of course I _care_ , you" – she stops, very abruptly, blushes furiously and refuses to look at him. Castle hops off his bar stool, rounds the counter and puts his arms round her. When she doesn't simply curl in he picks her up by the waist, turns her into him and gently but inexorably pulls her closer, not stopping till she's plastered over his front.

"I know," he says softly. "Come here." _Come here_ , he muses, is one of those happily pointless statements that fills silence while meaning very little except _let me hold you and make it all better_. Which of course means everything. "You know I do too." He leaves it at that. He also leaves Beckett in his arms, where she really should be a lot more often. She's just the right size to lean on his shoulder and be swamped in his bulk. If it wasn't for the fact that she probably knows a dozen ways to kill him without breaking a sweat it would be very romantic: broad and strong with his girl in his arms. As it is, it might be romantic but she's hardly a delicate little flower who needs him leaping tall buildings in a single bound and catching bullets in his teeth. Just as well: he'd hate it if she were a clinging vine. Though a little more clinging wouldn't hurt…

"Where are you going, Beckett?" He can hear himself whining as she tugs away, and stops it.

"I have real estate agents to see. Remember?"

"You have to wait for me. You promised we'd both go."

"I didn't."

"You implied the promise."

"You can't imply a promise. There's no such thing as a verbal contract."

"Can you tell Gina that? She uses every word against me."

"If you turned your chapters in on time she wouldn't."

"Genius can't be rushed, Beckett."

"So what's your excuse, then?" Castle splutters. "You've got fifteen minutes. Then I'm going whether you're ready or not." Unfair, Beckett. Very, _very_ unfair. He dashes for the shower. It's the fastest he's ever got ready in his life.

* * *

After three useless rental agents, Castle is bored. Very, very bored. He's seen several apartments which would be just fine for Beckett – their main attraction being that they're all less than half a mile from Broome Street. Beckett turns them all down without even wanting to visit them.

The fourth agent is initially no more promising. Its range, to Castle's jaundiced and well-funded eye, is very limited: not a luxurious loft in sight. The woman passing over details is a bottle blonde with a strong New Jersey accent and a skirt that's half a size too short and tight. If he still signed chests, he could have listed his entire oeuvre without lacking for space. The agency is down-at-heel. Even the chairs are cheap, nasty and uncomfortable. He declines coffee, for fear of the coffee proving stronger than he is. Beckett, naturally, accepts, and appears to have glared the fluid into terrified submission to her throat and digestion. It's a mystery to him, therefore, why Beckett should be so much more interested in these apartments than any of the others. They're all so – _bare_. Skeletal, really, the bones of a structure but not at all a home. Naked brickwork, tall, transparent windows. Even in the furnished photos, they look chilly and empty.

The apartment Beckett seems most interested in doesn't appeal to Castle at all. It's split-level, one large open-plan space below, bedroom and bathroom above. Bare brickwork, very nearly full height windows, cool pale colours where there aren't bricks. It's also far too far away from his loft for his taste.

"I'd like to see this one," he hears Beckett say, and doesn't quite conceal his dismay. "Can we go now?"

"Sure," the agent says, New Jersey twang on full display.

Castle is relegated to the back seat while Beckett and the blonde discuss technicalities such as air conditioning, doormen (and desirable lack thereof), water pressure, elevators, shower versus bath (both) and possible entry dates should it be suitable, about which Beckett is notably non-committal. Since he has no part to play in this conversation, and in fact is only coming with Beckett so that if she gets tired or cross or hurt he can take her home safely or to the hospital again (he is not stupid enough to say any of this) or to offer an opinion if asked (he won't be), he turns his mind to wondering what's so good about these apartments that wasn't just as good and much more cosy and comforting in the last twenty sets of details.

Light dawns. Castle smiles smugly to himself at having worked out the reasoning and also having peeled another little piece of the Beckett onion. (He just hopes that peeling Beckett-onions does not entail as much weeping as peeling real ones.) Beckett is not notably fluffy, sappy, or into unnecessary fuss and bustle. She'd said so. She had said, in fact, that she needed space and privacy, and he already knows that she needs time on her own. It stands to reason that she wouldn't want an apartment full of fussy nooks and corners, frou-frou décor and bric-a-brac. She wants space, and light, and clear straight lines. Physical space, and mental space to clear her head. Her last apartment had been like that too. Hmm. Interesting.

It's even more interesting, since her objection to staying longer at his had been the noise and fuss of his over-exuberant family (for which read his mother, really) but not him. Which is very strange indeed, since she has from time to time described him in terms which really would not incline him to believe that he doesn't disturb her composure or serenity. Nine year old on a sugar rush. Cocker spaniel. Etc. Except that she had more or less said that he doesn't. Hmm. Exceedingly interesting, Dr Watson. Exceedingly.

He knows from the moment they walk in behind the agent that Beckett wants this apartment. Admittedly, that's only because he's watched Beckett like a hawk for a year and a half and he knows her tiniest tells. The agent hasn't a clue, just like suspects never have a clue. The agent, in fact, is massively worried that Beckett hates it and there will be no commission. Beckett simply keeps on looking around and making depressingly neutral-to-chilly noises of no commitment whatsoever. Castle looks on in astonishment as the agent offers a slight reduction in the rent, which appears to fall on stony ground, a moving-in date of not a month, as had first been offered, but in two weeks' time, and the assurance that before Beckett moved in there would have been a full deep clean. Beckett sucks her teeth and hums dispiritingly. The estate agent's perky outline de-perks.

"It's not exactly what I was looking for," Beckett says. Castle would love to yell _liar_ , but he doesn't think that it would be helpful either to Beckett's living arrangements or indeed to his continued living, with or without arrangements. She turns towards the door. "I suppose it will do, though. You'll put the changes you agreed in writing, won't you?"

The agent, who is now cowed and drooping, nods vigorously. "Sure, Ms Beckett. You'll have them right away."

"Thanks," Beckett says briskly. "I want to start moving in no more than two weeks from now. That won't be a problem, will it?" That does not really sound like a question.

"Oh no, Ms Beckett. Not at all."

"Good. Let's go back to your office and get the paperwork sorted out."

Castle trails along behind, a little – actually, a lot – depressed. He _understands_ why Beckett needs to get out (and curses his mother, whose words, he is pretty sure, provided a rather earlier impetus than he would have liked) of the loft, but he really, really likes Beckett sneaking into his bed and snuggling up to him and being there in the morning when he wakes and now there's an end date to that. It's not fair. He can't just spend every other night over at Beckett's new place: that's not a good plan. He has to look after Alexis. He's a good parent and he's staying a good parent. It's not as if he doesn't know what hands-off parenting looks like – and he's not being painted into that portrait. No way. But he does wish that he could have both permanent Beckett and good parenting.

On the other hand… His natural optimism reasserts itself. Even if it's not many nights, there need be no sneaking around. No embarrassment. No need to hide. No need (he grins wolfishly at the prospect) to be quiet. There are a number of advantages, in fact. Fewer than if she just stayed with him, but still, a good number.

Paperwork is swiftly dealt with, and Beckett slashes her final signature on to the papers with aplomb. "Done," she says definitively. "Thank you."

"I'll e-mail you the moving date."

"Thanks."

"That was okay," Beckett notes. "All sorted out." Castle looks down at her – she's been wearing flats all the time, presumably to reduce the risk of further injury – and observes a certain degree of tiredness and a slight stiffness to her posture.

"Yeah. Let's go home, Beckett." He folds a hand gently over hers. Her fingers wrap around his in return. The fingers don't leave his grasp, except for the small necessities of getting in and out of cabs, until they are back at the loft.

"Now what?" he asks.

"Coffee. Wash away that" –

"Monkey pee in battery acid?"

"Repetition, Castle. You use that phrase about machine coffee every time."

"Repetition? What is this, Just A Minute?"

"What?"

"Just A Minute. TV show, in the Fifties."

"So? What's that got to do with anything?"

"You had to speak for a minute without repetition, hesitation, or deviation." Beckett quirks an eyebrow at him.

"So if it was in the Fifties, how do you know about it? You're old" – he squawks – "but not quite that old."

"Reruns," Castle says bitterly. "Do you know how many reruns theatre people watch?"

"Ah," Beckett says, knowingly. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Your old-fashioned ways."

"What?" Beckett smirks annoyingly. "I am a very modern man." She smirks more widely. "I _am._ "

"Of course you are, Castle," she says patronisingly. "That's why you insist on paying for lunch unless I bribe the waiting staff beforehand" –

"You do what? What d'you do that for?"

"So I get to pay for lunch occasionally."

"I don't want you to pay for my lunch. I wanna pay for your lunch."

"And that's why I bribe the waiting staff," Beckett says as if it's a foregone conclusion that she should sidestep his desire to be generous all the time. "Sometimes I need to pay. Otherwise it's one-sided." Castle only just doesn't say _I want it to be one-sided. I want to pay for things. I want to give you everything_. That discussion is never, ever, going to go well. The trays in Michael's shop float through his head. That discussion wouldn't go well right now either, not least because it's sent his brain into complete incoherence. It's too soon. Really it is. Really. They aren't even exactly dating yet.

And, of course, Beckett will be moving out again in two weeks. His hand tightens on hers. She winces slightly, and he consciously relaxes his grip, lets go of her hand entirely and puts his arm round her instead. He suddenly feels the need simply to hold her close, while he can.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._

 _As a result of travel plans and suchlike, posting may be at odd times for the next few days. Sorry._


	15. Chapter 15

**15: Thief of time**

"Now what, Beckett?"

Beckett briefly acquires an expression of tired misery, as swiftly wiped away.

"I suppose I ought to look for furniture." She doesn't exactly sound enthusiastic.

"Today?" Castle doesn't think that's a good plan. Sitting peacefully cuddled up with her book and his laptop sounds much better.

"Soon. I can't move in without furniture." She makes a face. "I hope the insurance pays up soon, too." Castle hadn't thought of that. Oh. His mouth opens. "And you are not paying for any of it, Castle." It closes again.

"But you're my girl," he whines. "You're supposed to let me take care of you." He bats big blue eyes and looks appealingly at her.

"If I need money I'll go to the ATM." Her glare stops his whining cold.

"Okay," he placates. "But you know, Beckett, all this independence is very unbecoming in a woman. Anyone would think you had the vote and your own money and wore pants and everything." He smirks evilly.

Beckett sniggers, and looks much cheerier. Her fingers are circling her watch again, but not as much. She hasn't played with the ring at all. Castle concludes that she is feeling better, and cuddles her in a bit more to improve matters further. That means, serendipitously, that her head is very close to his, which means that if he just turns a little and dips a little – there. Her lips were indeed very nicely positioned to meet his. How convenient. She's not arguing with him any more. That's convenient, too. This is much nicer than arguing.

It certainly steals time. When they pull apart, and he finds that Beckett is mysteriously curled in his lap and tucked against him, with which he is sure he had nothing to do and he has _no idea_ how his hands are inside her shirt and pressed against the warm smooth skin there, it's quite a lot later. Past lunchtime, in fact, and he is hungry. For food. Yes. Food. And he is not thinking the word _eating_ in any other context at all. Definitely not. Mainly because if he does think that he'll _do_ it, and he is (he preens) sufficiently good at it that she'll more than wriggle, and then she'll scream, but it won't be in ecstasy. Dammit.

"I'm hungry," Beckett husks. That is not helpful at all. That tone does not incline him to think of _sandwiches_. Well, other than sandwiching Beckett between his body and the bedsheets. That's not a helpful thought, either.

"Are you?" he asks feebly. Then he makes a determined effort, and recovers some game. "What do you like to eat, Beckett?"

"Oh, so many different things, Castle. You have no idea the range of my..." she pauses… "tastes. Sometimes I like simple and easy. Sometimes I like… spice. Heat." He's hot. Oh _God_ , he is hot. She's killing him. "Vanilla is all very well but I like my flavours to be stronger." Which would be perfectly innocent if she weren't drawing her nails very delicately over his biceps and tracing the muscle line as she said it.

He's losing this game. He's never lost this game before. Except every time he's tried to play it with Beckett, of course. Except these last two days…when they've both won.

"You like strong flavours?" he purrs, suddenly dangerous. "You like to be… overwhelmed?"

"Mmmm."

"Maybe I should put English mustard on your grilled cheese, then," Castle says brightly. Beckett punches him in the bicep she'd just been tracing. "Did you mean something else?" he adds innocently. Beckett growls ferociously. Castle sniggers. "Lunchtime," he says, and bounces off to put together sandwiches, sodas, and absolutely no mustard. Beckett is not precisely looking as if she appreciated him getting one over on her.

Lunch is eaten to the accompaniment of – in Castle's case – a smug smirk and – in Beckett's – a scowl. It's not entirely clear, however, that the scowl is wholly directed at him, though every time she looks at him the scowl intensifies. Castle continues to smirk and eat his lunch.

He starts the tidying with the suspicion that as soon as he turns his back on Beckett she will wreak revenge upon him, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's taken herself back to the couch. Small tapping sounds echo around the loft.

"Beckett, what are you doing with my laptop? Are you sneaking peeks at my writing? That's not allowed."

"No. 'M looking at furniture." Ah. The scowl is explained. Beckett might like clothes shopping – she certainly likes good clothes and shoes – but she wasn't precisely cheery about apartment hunting and she doesn't seem cheery about furnishing it. Strange, when her previous apartment had been so well put together.

"Don't you like furnishing?"

"Yes, but I need to do it all at once." Oh. O-kay. Enough said. She'd built the previous décor up over time.

"No, you don't. All you need are a few things."

"Like what?"

"Table, chairs, couch, king size bed."

"What?"

"Table, chairs, couch, king size bed," Castle says patiently, and waits for that to sink in.

"I don't need a king size bed."

"Yes, you do." Beckett looks crossly at him.

"Don't be silly. All I need is a queen."

"Hope you like cuddling, then."

" _What_?"

"My bed is king size. Plenty of room for both of us – as you know, Detective – without anyone running out of space or falling out the edges." He grins evilly. "Plenty of room for people to sneak in without disturbing anyone."

"I do not sneak."

"Didn't we already have this argument – and I won?"

"You did not win. I won. I don't sneak."

"You sneaked last night. Again. When I wasn't looking."

"It's not my fault you were in the bathroom primping through your nightly beauty routine."

"But look how successful it is. I'm gorgeously handsome." He grins.

"Your ego is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. I don't need a king size bed. Except to fit your ego."

"So you agree I'll be in it?"

"What? No!"

"You just said I would be."

"Did not."

"Did. You said you'd get a king size bed so my ego would fit. So since my ego is part of me, obviously I'm going to have to fit. So that's agreed. Not that you were very nice about it, Beckett."

Beckett scowls in furious frustration and can't find an argument to deal with him, which is just what Castle wants. She's simply being difficult for the sake of it, since she's spent nearly a week sneaking into his bed and – er – enjoying the advantages of being there. So to speak. Or, preferably, touch.

"You should get a laptop of your own, Beckett." She groans.

"I know. It's not top of the list right now."

Castle takes advantage of her momentary distraction to tuck Beckett back in so that he can read the webpages over her shoulder. And hug her, which is a happy by-product. The furniture Beckett is looking at is all very plain and light. Simple. It will, Castle realises, look just right in the space that she's renting. As will Beckett. It's just that she'd look much more right, right here.

While he's thinking, Beckett is muttering at the website. She isn't happy about the dimensions being difficult to find, it appears. She mutters for a little longer.

"Have you got blank paper and a pencil?" she asks, out of nowhere.

"Sure." He wanders off and returns with a pad and a couple of pencils. Beckett puts the pad on her lap and sketches out two rectangles. Then she scrawls on a few short lines on one side, and two on another. Castle looks down at it, blankly. Beckett chews the end of the pencil – ugh – and writes on some numbers. Then she looks at the webpage, and starts to draw on smaller rectangles. About that point, Castle works out that she's sketching out her new space and putting in furniture dimensions.

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Skill. I'm very good at judging size and fit."

"Really?" drawls Castle. "That's good to hear." Beckett rolls her eyes.

"Furniture, Castle. Much as I keep hoping for a miracle, you have not turned into furniture that would fit in my apartment, like a wooden table. You talk too much."

"You don't want me to turn into a wooden table, Beckett. Wooden tables wouldn't be as comfortingly warm and cuddly. They'd be rigid and unpleasant."

"Are you suggesting that you're never… rigid, Castle?"

He chokes. Beckett looks coolly at his distress, and carries on sketching various alignments and then rubbing them out. The surface of the paper is nearly as abraded as the surface of his self-esteem.

Eventually she has a picture she's apparently happy with. Castle peers at the little boxes she's drawn and tries to imagine the furniture in situ.

"Okay," she says. "Guess I'd better order it. It's going to take at least two weeks before I even get a delivery date." Her face scrunches up. "It won't get better for waiting." She slides cautiously off the couch and aims for the stairs. "Card," she says in explanation, and disappears upwards.

Ten minutes later she hasn't reappeared. Five minutes after that, she still hasn't. Five seconds after that Castle is mounting the stairs himself. It doesn't occur to him till he reaches the top that she might be in the bathroom. That idea is swiftly banished when he hears the unmistakable sounds of upset Beckett, smothering said upset in a pillow. He sits down on her bed and pats her back as she lies prone on the bed.

"What's up, Beckett?"

"I want my old furniture back. I _liked_ it. It took me ages to find it all, and it's all gone." The emphasis on _liked_ gives Castle the impression that it had – each piece had – held meaning for her. "I don't want to have to get all new stuff. Not that I've got much to put in it anyway." Castle pats her some more. He wants to pick her up and hug her, but that would be uncomfortable. When she's ready, she'll come to him and be comforted. In the meantime, he has an idea.

"Why do you need to get new furniture?"

"Because all my furniture got blown up." _Dumbass_ is loud on the silent air.

"No, why do you need _new_ furniture." She turns over, slowly, and looks up at him blankly. "You could get old furniture. Investigate the thrift and antique shops."

"I can't afford antiques."

"Pre-loved, then. Isn't that the term?" There's a spark of interest in her damp eyes. He pulls her up to sitting by her wrists. She sniffs wetly. He hands her a Kleenex. "Sniffing is horrible, Beckett. Blow." She does, though it's accompanies by a blackly ominous scowl. "Attagirl." The scowl would now destroy cities. "Come here." Despite the risk of scorch marks in his shirt and possibly skin, he cuddles her into his shoulder. Shortly, her shoulders move. He hopes, ridiculously, that her mascara is waterproof, and then realises that there is no dampness. "We could go now, if you wanted. If your ribs will stand it? There are plenty of places nearby." She stays close, not speaking. Her long, elegant hands are gripping his upper arms; her shoulders now still but her breathing still slightly ragged.

" 'Kay," drags from her mouth.

"We don't have to go today. When you're up to it."

"It won't get better for waiting." She'd said that earlier, too, about new furniture.

"It won't get better for making you miserable, either."

She blows her nose again, defiantly. "Let's _do_ this." Determination buttresses her words. She sits up straight, stretches in that strange half-and-half way that doesn't stretch her ribs but flexes every other point, and then stands to slip her feet into her shoes. Castle follows her and can't resist catching her in again.

"I thought we were going to furniture stores? That's not getting us out of here."

"Moral support, Beckett."

She looks sceptical. "Moral support? You have a moral that will provide support to anything other than a house of cards?" Castle looks her straight in the eye. "Sorry," she says. "That was unfair." She leans in and on him. "It's just all too much. I'm snarky and unkind so that you don't feel you have to feel sorry for me and it's not fair on you but I have to cope somehow or I'll never stop crying." He rubs her back gently, big hands covering a wide span: keeping her close, safe.

"If you're going to be snarky, I'll – I'll set my mother on you." Beckett looks appropriately horrified. "I'll make you come to her productions."

"I'll claim the Geneva Convention protections," Beckett flips back. "Torture is illegal."

"And it would be," Castle says ruefully. "My mother is actually a pretty good actress, but her choice of productions … not so much." He pets a little more, delicately suggesting that Beckett's head should lean on his shoulder and nestle into his neck where the scent of her hair can delight his nose and the soft pressure of her body against his – still so very gentle and careful, when he wants to be able to hold her tightly and never need to worry about it – can delight the rest of him.

Beckett, however, being determined to go furniture shopping – _get it over with_ seems an appropriate phrase to Castle – is not in the same romantic mood as Castle is. She straightens up far too quickly, steps back far too forcefully, and is halfway downstairs far too soon.

"What do you like, Beckett?"

"Huh?"

"I'm not going to waste time pointing out items that you'll hate from the get-go. What sort of furniture are you looking for?" She's as decisive as usual.

"Wood. Light. Not too heavy, no ostentatious decoration" – Castle hums happily at the vocabulary, he loves it when she uses five-dollar words – "but with character. Let's see what the first store is like, and then you'll probably have a pretty good idea."

The first store is useless, and Castle is not helped by the nagging feeling that there's a piece of knowledge playing knock-the-door-and-run-away in his head. They move on to a second, only not hurrying because every time Beckett tries to speed up and apply her usual brisk, forceful stride she winces as it resonates through her ribs. It's more useful, at least in terms of finding out her tastes, but Beckett still doesn't like anything.

"Coffee, Beckett. Let's pause for a minute or two and have a think." He refuses to listen to Beckett's mutters of _I'm paying_ , orders two coffees and, after a moment's thought, a sfogliatine for Beckett. Lemon, to match her mood. She tears into it. Two gulps of coffee later, she suddenly perks up.

"We're so dumb, Castle!"

"Speak for yourself," he says, offended.

"We shouldn't be here, we should go to the flea markets." Castle mentally slaps himself upside the head. _That's_ the thought he couldn't catch. They are dumb. Not that he's going to admit it.

"Hell's Kitchen?" he asks.

"Sure, but there's a quieter one up off Columbus. GreenFlea, at West 77th. And it's near the new place." The pastry has disappeared in two quick bites. The coffee is drained in three slugs. "C'mon, Castle, let's go." He has the distinct feeling that if he doesn't hurry up she'll be tugging him up and dragging him out. She's developed enthusiasm: her eyes are bright and her lips quirking happily. He drains his cup and bounces up, made happier by her evident cheerful purpose, and fired by their goal doesn't even think before grabbing her hand to be towed out.

Castle insists on a cab, stowing Beckett in and pointing out that it will be much better for her healing ribs to be in a cab not the subway. It deposits them at the Columbus entrance, during which journey Castle hasn't let go of Beckett's hand for a moment. Fortunately for him, she seems to be equally as content to have her hand held as he is to hold it. It's all quite ridiculously sappy.

GreenFlea is much more useful than the previous stores. They wander happily hand in hand in the sunshine, arguing amiably about the relative merits of birch over pine or unstained walnut over light oak, gradually getting closer and closer. The fourth time their hips bump Castle lets go of Beckett's hand and slings his arm round her. Astonishingly, she twines her arm round his waist in return and they fall into step as if they'd been walking together like this all their lives. As they meander, Castle's eyes flitting from one pitch to the next while Beckett gives the selection a hard stare that Castle last saw in Interrogation One, she starts to make soft noises of interest and satisfaction at various points.

Once they've been round once, Beckett stops making soft interested and satisfied noises and starts making noises of focused intent. Castle recognises the noises as Beckett on the hunt and ready to bring down her prey, and resigns himself to _not_ being allowed to buy her anything.

While she's intimidating the pitch-holders into giving her good pricing on the few items she's selected, Castle wanders off and inspects various sites with pictures and little bits and pieces of ornament. Her apartment hadn't had much in the way of ornament, but – aha! A geometric rug in brown and terracotta shades would work against her bare brickwork and tall windows. He discusses his thoughts with the vendor for a while, and convinces her to put one aside for him. He wants to buy it for Beckett, but he doesn't want to foist it upon her until (one) she's actually in her apartment (even if she should stay with him and not go anywhere at all without him and certainly not move to a place of her own) and (two) he's floated the idea. After that, if she likes the idea of a rug, he'll present her with it as a housewarming gift.

He's daydreaming idly around, wasting time to stay out of Beckett's way, when he passes a small bric-a-brac stall. His eye is initially caught by a particularly ugly Toby jug, but after his fascinated horror has passed he spots something else. He has a short discussion with that stallholder and agrees to collect it from her two Sundays on, pays and insinuates himself back into the crowds in case Beckett should spot him.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers, in particular guests who cannot be thanked individually._

 _Thank you also to everyone who read and/or reviewed Double Cross, especially all the guests whom I can't thank._


	16. Chapter 16

**16: Spending time**

Castle saunters back around the market until he locates Beckett, who, from her satisfied demeanour, has successfully terrorised a number of vendors into doing exactly what she wants.

"Do we need to hire a truck, Beckett?"

"No." She produces a number of little cards. "I paid for everything, but they'll keep it for me for a few days till I can pick up."

"What did you get?"

"Bookcase, desk, table, a few chairs, coffee table. Two side lamps and a nightstand."

"We _will_ need a truck," Castle points out.

"We'll need Ryan, Espo, you and me to carry it all," Beckett points out in return.

"You're not carrying anything heavy," Castle says, horrified. "Even two weeks from now you're not supposed to do anything strenuous. Beckett's beautiful face darkens instantly. It's funny, he muses, how it's still beautiful even when it so closely resembles a thunderstorm about to break over his head.

"I thought you wanted a couch and a bed too?" he distracts, rapidly.

"I do. But I'm not getting upholstered furniture or mattresses at a flea market, and I haven't seen a bedframe that I like." She sighs. "Back to the internet and the stores."

"At least they'll deliver," Castle says. "Save our backs." Beckett flicks a glance at him.

"You don't have to fetch and carry for me – unless it's coffee when you turn up in the bullpen, of course. Then it's compulsory."

"If I don't make sure that you've got furniture installed, you might not move in. And while I'm perfectly happy if you stay in my loft for months, you're the one who said you needed your own place. So it's in my interest that you get moved in as quickly as possible."

"How does that follow, Castle? That's not logical at all."

He smirks in an offensively superior fashion.

"Once you're moved in, I can come and see you. You said you didn't need space from me." He smiles smugly. "You said I could have a key, too."

The boggled, baffled expression on Beckett's face is worth a million dollars. She flaps her jaw but produces only a few strangulated squawks and squeaks. He loves it when he confounds her with illogic. The reaction is so much _fun_. Especially when his statements are completely nonsensical.

She's still fizzling gently and fulminating not-so-gently when they regain the relative safety of the loft.

"Are you going to look up beds and couches?"

"Later," Beckett says. That's apparently the be-all and end-all of that conversational line.

"Let's make dinner, then. Seeing as you're so good at chopping and slicing, you're in charge of beautifying the vegetables."

"Even for you, that's a little flowery. Vegetables do not need to be beautified. They need to be prepared."

"But you should prepare them beautifully. Food should delight the eye as well as the tongue."

The quibbling continues all the way through the preparation of a chicken stir-fry and noodles. It ceases through dinner, mainly because the stir-fry is delicious and the wine excellent. Beckett, however, appears to have buried herself in her dinner and a limited amount of wine. It looks like she's contemplating furniture, if the crease between her brows is anything to go by. Castle doesn't bother asking if she wants coffee, simply makes it, conveys it to the table in front of the couch, and then conveys Beckett after it by lifting her off her chair and directing her towards it.

"I can stand up by myself," she snips.

"So? I like picking you up. Makes me feel macho and manly."

"Manly is not about Neanderthal actions."

"Define it, then, Beckett," Castle says quickly. He's really interested to hear what she says. She pauses, clearly thinking, then smiles wickedly.

"Like an elephant, I know it when I see it."

Castle pouts. That is a very evasive answer. Most unfair. His instincts start to twitch, as does his sense of mischief. Beckett is clearly hiding something, and he's determined to winkle it out of her.

"That's cheating. You need to give a proper answer."

"This isn't Interrogation, Castle, and I'm not a suspect." But he is now suspicious of her. Very suspicious. Beckett failing to answer always means that he's on to something she'd rather not admit. He casts his mind back to her earlier cut-off statement _Of course I care_ and flaming face.

"You are trying to change the subject, though. C'mon. What's manly in the Beckett Book of Life?"

"The _Beckett Book of Life_? Have I wandered into a bad sitcom? Or a self-help nightmare?"

"You're avoiding the subject," Castle singsongs. "You don't want to answer." A thin film of colour rises over Beckett's cheeks.

"Okay then. Manly isn't about exerting physical strength and being overly protective. It's about being supportive without being suffocating. Helping if needed." She stops. Her cheeks are now bright. She buries her nose in her coffee cup and appears to have run out of words.

"Am I manly, then?" Castle says, as provocatively as he'd said _Am I cute_? a few days ago.

"Egotistical much, Castle? Stop fishing for compliments. It's bad manners."

"So you think I am."

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it. I can read your subtext like a book, Beckett. But if you won't tell me, that's okay. I'll assume I am."

"Assume what you like."

Beckett sounds particularly disgruntled. Castle chalks up a small win for finding out that she clearly does think him manly (he preens. In a manly fashion.) but simply won't admit it. Not that he'd describe her as feminine, or worse, womanly. Oh no. Those have a whole series of soft, feeble connotations (very unfair, but that's a couple of hundred years of societal imprinting for you) that are simply inappropriate for Beckett. Come to think of it, they're inappropriate for every woman he knows except Meredith, who assumed femininity whenever she wanted something. Female. Femanly? He gives up. He should have taken a gender studies course. Clearly he knows nothing.

While he's been pondering the correct vocabulary, in which pastime he can pass substantial time, Beckett has repossessed herself of his laptop and is clicking her tongue at – he shuffles up to her and peers over her shoulder – bedframes. Specifically, king size bedframes. He bites his tongue, hard. He wouldn't want to do anything that might disturb her thinking – or reduce the size of the bed that he hopes they'll be sharing. Frequently.

He peers more enthusiastically – well, more obviously enthusiastically – as he finds that Beckett is not attempting amputation on his extremities. Peering is not particularly comfortable, so he solves that problem simply by draping his arm round her and nestling her in. He could really get used to this. Four days or so of being able to snuggle up to Beckett has addicted him, and he has _no_ intention of trying to kick the habit. Even better (and unlike many addictive substances) it is not illegal, immoral (well, mostly) or fattening. Perfect.

"I like this one," Beckett eventually says decisively. (Is she ever _not_ decisive?) Castle peruses the page. It's – not what he might have expected, given her earlier comments about light wood. It's a metal frame, spare and clean but not quite austere. He ought to recognise the style, but he can't quite place it, until Beckett says, "I've always liked the Rennie Mackintosh designs. I can get a mirror that style too, quite easily, and maybe a bedside lamp. The ones I got earlier are for the main room."

"Nice," is all he says. "Does it sell mattresses too? You wouldn't want to be sleeping on the frame. It's bad for your back – and your ribs."

"Oh? I rather thought that you'd offered yourself up as a mattress. Was I wrong?"

"No, but if that's what's happening you can stay here. I'm not dislocating my vertebrae when we can both be perfectly comfortable."

"Yes," says Beckett with a mischievous smile. "The mattress upstairs is very comfortable." Castle growls meaningfully. Beckett smirks. "To answer the important question, yes, it does sell mattresses. To answer the question you're very loudly not asking, they'll deliver any time after ten days from now. So I can have it delivered first, and then work round it." Abruptly, she droops. "I'll need to get bed linen. Towels. Even dishtowels and dusters." She winces, and it's clearly nothing to do with her ribs. "Oh, _God_. Everything. Crockery, cutlery… Ugh. I _hate_ thinking about all this. It's all so" – she scrunches up her face in disgust – " _domestic_. I don't _do_ domestic."

 _Tell me something I don't know, Beckett_ , Castle thinks. _You're about as domesticated as a full-grown tiger_. _A Siberian tiger, at that_. He has a blinding flash of inspiration.

"I do domestic," he says, trailing the thought across her irritation.

"You've done lots already. It wouldn't be fair."

"I could help you make a list. That's no skin off my nose." He grins. "We could have a competition, Beckett. Like those silly school games. We each make a list, and we discount all the things we both thought of, and then whoever thinks of the most items" –

"Normal, basic items. I'm not having you suggesting esoteric items like lemon zest shavers and wire boiled-egg slicers," Beckett inserts in his flow –

"wins."

"Wins what?" she says, far too suspiciously.

"Dinner," Castle says happily. "I'm bound to win, so you can take me for dinner, wherever you choose. But in the unlikely event that I lose" – Beckett makes a noise that sounds disgracefully like blowing a raspberry – "I'll take you for dinner wherever I choose. Done?"

"Done." She pauses. "What if it's a draw?"

"We go Dutch."

"Okay."

Castle bounces off to locate paper and pens immediately, before Beckett can think better of it. He does _all_ the shopping, and even if Alexis buys her own – er – _items_ now, he had had to originally. (He still cringes at the memory.)

"Okay, we've got writing implements, so now we need a time limit," he carols, "otherwise you'll add things all evening. Fifteen minutes. I'll set my phone."

" 'Kay," Beckett says distractedly, clearly already thinking.

"Ready, set, go!" She humphs at his frivolity.

Humphs or not, Beckett starts to scribble immediately. Her writing is even worse than it is in the precinct. _Penguins_ would write better than Beckett, and they can't even hold a pen. Castle starts to scrawl rapidly on his own account, and for fifteen minutes all is silent except for the skritching of pens and occasional exclamations of realisation.

When the alarm shrills Castle finishes his word and firmly removes both pens from reach to prevent cheating. Both sheets are laid out on the table where both of them can see – again, to prevent cheating. It's not that Castle's mistrustful, precisely – it's just that he knows his Beckett, who is mistrustful by profession. And, he strongly suspects, not above cheating. He squints at her list. She squints at his.

Fairly quickly, after a few pauses for translation of the respective hieroglyphics, the obvious equivalencies are deleted. That's when the row starts.

"Washing up items includes a basin, cloths, scrubbers and dishtowels, Castle."

"But you didn't list them. So you've got one and I've got four."

"That's ridiculous."

It gets more and more heated. Beckett clearly subscribes to the classification theory, Castle to the detail. This is remarkable for its contradictory position from their normal attitudes.

"This is stupid," Beckett grumps. "You're cheating and it's not fair."

"I'm not cheating. I wrote down everything. You didn't. You just wrote down generalities. So I win."

"You do not. My list covers everything on your list and more."

"Does not. You're covering up that you didn't think of half these things."

"Did so."

"Don't believe you."

"Don't then. I'm going to bed." She stands up, sulkily. "And you did not win," she says childishly from the foot of the stairs. "It was a draw." She huffs off.

Castle glares at her retreating back and says loudly, "I did so win." Which is, of course, equally childish. He huffs off to his office with his laptop and buries himself in a computer game which involves a lot of shooting and therefore a great deal of stress relief. _Manly_ stress relief. Eventually he washes and goes to bed. Unsurprisingly, there is no Beckett to be found in it. He feels deprived of his teddy-bear equivalent, and falls asleep with a pout on his face.

When he briefly wakes in the small hours, there is a Beckett to be found in his bed. This is mildly surprising. It would be astounding, but he's too sleepy to be astounded. He turns over, cuddles his Beckett-bear in and is swiftly asleep again.

* * *

When he wakes up there is a dent in the pillows and an absence of Beckett. He shuts his eyes again. It may be Monday but his alarm hasn't rung yet. Shortly there is a small pressure on the side of the bed and a slightly chilly body snuggles back in. Her feet are cold. Castle knows this because Beckett has tucked them against his calves. He squeaks.

"Your feet are cold, Beckett."

"You're nice and warm." She tucks her feet, and the rest of her, in more closely.

"I'm not a heater," Castle huffs. There are two small icebergs developing between his knees and ankles. Once upon a time, they were his legs.

"Are so." She wriggles into him even further. Obviously the chill has prevented her tweaking her ribs while doing so. Before he can protest further, or alternatively take advantage, his alarm settles the point. Castle falls out of bed on the opposite side from Beckett's encroaching extremities and escapes, basely turning a deaf ear to her complaints.

"There will be breakfast, Beckett," he says, popping his head back round the door.

"Sleep," is all he gets in return.

It's not till he's most of the way through finding bacon, flipping pancakes and finishing off some sliced fruit that he has time to think that it's a little odd that Beckett, who is permanently present in the precinct before eight a.m., should be sleeping so late. He shrugs the thought into the box marked "later" and concentrates on not burning anything. Then he concentrates on his own breakfast, Alexis leaving for school, and clearing up.

When all that's done, he pokes his head round his bedroom door, observes Beckett for a few moments, forcibly tears himself away from more creepy staring at her spread out across the bed – stealing it all, he thinks – and her dark hair bright on the pillows. She is, once again, out cold. It occurs to Castle, looking at her peaceful face and listening to the soft pattern of her breathing, that she's had a bit of a rough time for the last couple of months. Coonan had been a major shock to her system, and killing him must have rocked her foundations. Being stalked by a serial killer isn't exactly a walk in the park, either, and then she'd almost been blown up. This is not conducive to a quiet, soothing existence. He's surprised that she hasn't had more nightmares – though, come to think of that, she's had nightmares every night she's been here. That's why she's been in his bed. Even last night, when she'd been childishly cross and sulky with him because _he_ won their game, she'd still sneaked down. Ergo, another nightmare.

 _How_ long might she have been having nightmares? He hopes it's just the last few days. Surely he'd have noticed if she'd been tired, or raccoon-like beneath the eyes, for longer? He would have, definitely. So it's a temporary thing. That's fine, he can deal with that. He breathes a small sigh of relief, allows himself another few seconds of staring, and then tears himself away before he falls back into bed. Apart from any other consideration, there is no room. King size or not, Beckett is using up all the space.

Noises of waking Beckett disturb him some unspecified time later, when he's been miserably failing to achieve writing for a while, read all his favourite websites, looked at his sales stats, and had another two cups of coffee. While he's dragging himself back to the real world around him, the click of the bathroom door locking tells him that he's missed a chance for some fun.

Or maybe not. The bathroom door unlocks again. Beckett, not looking raccoonish at all, emerges, goes past him without a pause and aims straight for the coffee. When she's drained the first cup in one long swallow, she refills it and does the same again. She would try for a third go, but there's no coffee left. Castle prowls up behind her and – since she's right there – wraps his arms around her and then traps her between them as he starts to refill the percolator. It's pleasantly homely. Not that Beckett is homely, of course. Anything but. Maybe comfortable would be a better word.

"Got you," he says happily.

"Don't get between me and my coffee, Castle."

"Oooohhhh. Won't I like you when you're angry?"

"I am not Bruce Banner. Nor am I green and raging."

"Just raging?" Castle asks naughtily. Beckett growls fearsomely. "Proving my point there." He manoeuvres around her, without letting her escape. "More coffee?"

"Please."

Castle tucks arms round her again and settles her back against him while they wait for the coffee to brew. There's a comfortable space of friendly silence. Almost affectionate.

"What are we doing today?" he asks, when they're suitably arranged on the couch with the coffee.

" _I_ am going to go and look at laptops." That doesn't sound as if he's wanted. It also doesn't sound interesting. "And possibly towels and bed linen, if I can stand the excitement." Definitely not interesting. "But first I'm going to get dressed." That would possibly be a good plan. Castle is entirely unsure that Manhattan could cope with Beckett in silky shorts and camisole top. Well, the male half, anyway. "I need to go out on my own for a while." Okay. She'd said she needed space. He needs to give her it. They're not teens, to live in each other's pockets and be everything, all in all, to each other. Besides which, he'll need his own space to write, and she'll give him it.

"Do you need your back washed?" he leers.

"Not today." Castle droops, and pouts. "I want to get this done before lunchtime. If you come and 'wash my back'" – he can _hear_ the quotes around the phrase – "I won't even get out the front door before lunchtime." She grins. "You're a distraction. Besides which, don't you have some writing to do? I'm sure Gina is hounding you for your chapters."

"If you weren't distracting me…"

Beckett raises a quizzical eyebrow. "Castle, you're as distractible as a toddler."

"But _so_ much more adult," he murmurs, and reaches for her. "I'm distracted right now." And he kisses her and moves his fingers in a way which is _very_ distracting, for both of them, and then lifts her into his lap, which is even more distracting and provides so many more options for distraction, and then, since she seems to be in so much less discomfort than she has been, lifts her up, stands her up, lifts her again and takes her back through to the bedroom to distract both of them from just about everything that isn't the electricity arcing between them and the hot exchange of touch and mouth. _So_ helpful that neither of them had managed to get dressed.

* * *

 _thank you to all readers and reviewers._

 _Credit to WRTRD for telling me which flea markets were useful in Manhattan._


	17. Chapter 17

**17: The river of time**

Some time later the loft is quiet and Castle has found his inspiration. The remains of the morning pass, a brief, hurried lunch happens followed by a return to his laptop and the minutiae of his story for the whole of the afternoon. Alexis comes home, his mother comes and goes at random intervals, and eventually his stomach tells him it's time to make dinner.

Beckett is not there. There are no missed calls or texts or even e-mails to tell him where she might be. He is first confused – surely laptops and household linen doesn't take that long – and then, very swiftly, worried. What if someone knocked into her and her rib punctured her lung? What if she's been mugged or shot or murdered or kidnapped or… He forcibly tries to stop panicking. He fails. How did he not _notice_ that she hasn't come back yet? Where's she gone? Who's she with?

He's worrying himself into heart failure when the door opens and Beckett enters, a little flustered and a little tousled and a little rushed and hurried.

"Sorry," she says. "I was delayed at the morgue."

"The morgue?" Castle exclaims. "What on earth were you doing at the morgue? You're supposed to be on suspension."

"I didn't see you at the lab," Alexis adds.

"You wouldn't," Beckett points out. "I avoid high school groups. You shouldn't be exposed to the reality of murder."

Alexis looks cynically at Beckett. "You're telling _me_ this? With _my_ dad?"

"Yep," Beckett says calmly. "You might have a cast-iron stomach but I bet your classmates don't. I'm not clearing up the inevitable mess. You weren't allowed into the morgue and autopsy areas, were you?"

"No," Alexis admits. "We weren't." She looks somewhat disappointed. Beckett looks vindicated.

"Why were you at the morgue at all, Beckett?" Castle asks again.

"I wanted to see Lanie." There's a distinct undertone of _so leave it, Castle_ which he'll explore later. Along with an exploration of _don't bother starting in your room, start in mine_. It really does seem pointless for her to sneak downstairs only after the nightmares begin, rather than preventing them in the first place.

Later doesn't happen till… well, a _lot_ later. Alexis retires, and Beckett keeps the conversation very firmly focused on the difficulties of finding a new laptop that she likes and on the particularly tasteless colours of bed linen. She was, it appears, unimpressed by the possibility of bubble-gum pink. So would Castle have been. Pink is not his colour.

Finally he tires of the constant deflection. "Why were you at the morgue when you're suspended?"

"Lanie called me," Beckett says uninformatively. "She wanted to see how I was."

This is not entirely implausible. Still, it doesn't feel like the whole story.

"Mmmm?"

"She read me a lecture" – Castle winces in sympathy: he's been on the receiving end of Lanie's lectures once or twice himself, and the scar tissue is barely healed – "on taking care of myself, listening to the doctors, and not doing anything strenuous."

A thin line of colour washes her cheekbones. Castle deduces that Lanie-as-wingman (he knows she's on his side in the game of catching Kate Beckett, but he doesn't know what Beckett may have told her. Nothing, most likely) had adjusted the definition of strenuous somewhat. Or possibly Lanie has provided some blunt advice, suggestions, or downright orders.

"Oh," he says, as opposed to, say, _what did Lanie say exactly?_ He is massively impressed with his own self-control in not asking. Beckett starts to yawn. It doesn't appear to be faked, and in fact she does look a little tired. Possibly because it's after eleven, and that's the latest she's been up (if not awake) since she got here. "It's bedtime, Beckett." He pauses, and smiles mischievously at her. Sometime since Alexis went upstairs, she's migrated into the crook of his arm. He knows exactly how that happened. From the slightly confused look, she's not so sure. _No sneaky snuggling_ – not likely, Beckett. He intends to practice sneaky snuggling as often as he can get away with it.

"Yeah."

"So I'll go get your toothbrush and pyjamas." And Castle whisks himself upstairs and does precisely that before Beckett finishes closing her dropped-open mouth. He also brings down her cleanser and moisturiser and a hairbrush. He's grinning.

Beckett is not grinning. Beckett is glaring. Castle takes the path of least valour and most discretion and continues without a hitch through the office into his bedroom, where he drops the pyjamas off, and the bathroom, where everything else should be, and is, dropped off. Behind him there is a very strange noise. It sounds like a muted, furious yowl, as if he'd trodden on a cat's tail. It appears to be emanating from Beckett.

"What do you think you're _doing_?"

"Saving time."

"What?"

"Saving time. We both know you'll end up in here anyway, so why not save all that time messing around upstairs and missing me and having nightmares and just start right here?"

Beckett looks at him as if he's grown a second head. There's a pause, in which Castle comes to a realisation that he might just possibly have overstepped the mark a little. Or a lot. He droops, and looks penitent, all his grin and enthusiasm draining away.

"That was" – he searches for a word – "inappropriate." Beckett raises an eyebrow. Castle is recalled to emotions that he hasn't experienced since his most recent expulsion from high school. "I'm sorry. I'll go and put it all back." He turns away.

"Don't bother." Now does that mean that _she_ will, or that no-one will? He turns back round. "It might as well stay here with me." Castle gapes. Beckett smirks very nastily. "You shouldn't assume, Castle."

"You're _mean_." He steps toward her.

"Yep." Another step.

"You made me think…" And a third.

"Nope. _You_ made you think. I didn't say a word."

And a fourth step, which brings him into range. He catches her and firmly brings her laughing face to his.

"You" – kiss – "are" – kiss – "mean to me." Kiss. "It's not fair." Kiss. This time a few buttons open as well.

"You did it all yourself, Castle." He kisses her again. All her shirt buttons are open. In fact, her shirt is gone. She's got _no right_ to make him think he's mis-stepped when clearly he hasn't. It's not fair for her to tease him. It would, on the other hand, be only fair for him to tease her in return. And if he happens to enjoy it immensely, well, that's just jam in his doughnut.

"You yowled. Then you glared. What was I supposed to think?"

"I did not _yowl_. I do not _yowl_. I am not a dying cat." Castle says nothing, very loudly, and runs a finger extremely lightly over her ribs. "Broken ribs does not equal dying." Castle simply kisses her again: slowly, firmly and with intense attention to detail. Shortly his shirt falls off. How that happened is a mystery. He had nothing to do with it.

"Bed time, Beckett," he suggests.

"Mmm," she purrs. "You think?" She circles her hips very slowly against him. "Mmm. Guess so." Castle slides a hand over her ass and keeps her right where he wants her, moving round from her mouth to nibble her ear and then back to her mouth. She emits a small sexy sigh. Matters progress rather rapidly from there, and shortly Castle is carefully laying Beckett out across the bed and admiring a very elegant and restrained dark green underwear set. Front fastening, he notes. Everything that he's seen has been front fastening. This is to be encouraged. She smiles seductively up from the nest of pillows in which he's cocooned her, reaches up, pulls him down, and only Castle's fast reactions prevent him falling into her.

He amuses himself in tracing extensive, delicate patterns over her skin and tantalising her until she breaks the mood by informing him – with menaces – that teasing her further will result in his ability to perform being removed with Bobbitt-like precision. Which is entirely unfair, because it's not as if she's been passive. She's teased him horribly. He doesn't approve of this double standard at all. Still, there is a solution.

He's lying on his back, gloriously naked and ready, letting her move herself over him – he'd have lifted her, but she'd forcefully pushed him flat and made it perfectly clear that she may be hurt but she's not dead yet – and now she's straddling him and he teases her a little because she's _right there_ and her face is sleepy-sexy-stunning as she shimmies very slightly to align them and _ohhhh_ he slips right into her and he can watch her face as he does and _ohhhh_ she's really, really into this. As much as he is. And then they both stop thinking altogether, and though it's still very slow and careful and gentle it's perfect.

Afterwards, it's equally delightful to be able to curl up together, and drift softly into sleep knowing that she's there, and she's his, and he's hers, and they will both still be there in the morning. Together.

And they are.

* * *

Life passes quietly for the rest of the week, and the following week. Beckett goes back to the precinct, but, being confined to desk duty, is bored, frustrated and snappish. Ryan and Esposito have to put up with it, though it's remarkable how many leads they need to pursue outside the bullpen: Castle doesn't have to put up with it, and, not being particularly inclined to martyrdom on a 24/7 basis, brings her morning coffee and then decamps to writing. He suffers enough each evening as she complains about Montgomery's complete unreasonableness in not allowing her the chance to be injured further. On the other hand she's pretty much moved into his room and bed, and that is progressing very nicely indeed.

So it's a horrible shock when she says on Friday night, "I get the keys for the apartment tomorrow morning. Wanna come with me? I need to be there for all the deliveries. Ryan, Espo and Lanie are coming over to help out on Sunday. I've arranged for a small truck then to pick up all the furniture from GreenFlea, but the bed and all the linen and towels are coming tomorrow."

"But…"

"What's wrong? You knew I'd signed the lease two weeks ago."

"I…" He shrugs, unhappily.

"Will you come with me?"

He'd thought, clearly mistakenly, that she might not go. He'd started to think that she might stay; that she could deal with the noise and fuss and bustle of the loft. He has no idea why he should have thought that. It's not like they'd talked about it. They hadn't talked about it at all. They'd gone and bought furniture and she'd gone and bought a bed but ever since then they hadn't talked about it at all.

" 'S okay, Castle. We'll talk about it tomorrow." She turns for the office, and the bedroom beyond. When he catches up, she's already in the bathroom, and the door is shut. They've respected each other's night-time rituals and privacy, and he's not about to change that, no matter the painful upset of her definite departure date. When she emerges, there's a certain tightness around her eyes, a tiny furrow in her brow. She wriggles into bed, all caution past, and curls up as Castle eases past to perform his own night-time routine. Once that's over, she's still curled up, back to him, eyes shut.

"I know you're not asleep," he murmurs, and tucks her into his arm. They've developed this spooned closeness, over the last few days, as her injuries have healed enough to allow her to move more freely and turn without pain. "I'm coming tomorrow." She relaxes into him. Ah. He'd hurt her, and she'd begun to think he wouldn't go with her. Silly Beckett. But his chest is sore, at the thought of her moving out. Tomorrow. He cuddles her tighter, and tries not to think about it.

* * *

He wakes up to the now-usual sound of Beckett's alarm, looks at the clock and attempts to burrow into the pillows and keep a tight hold of Beckett. Neither works.

"Up, Castle. We need to get going."

"Urghhh."

"Up." Somehow he doesn't think she means the fun way. Which is probably just as well. He's not really in the mood. Tonight he'll be alone in his big brass bed. Even if it's not brass. _Stay lady, stay_. He struggles out of bed, unenthusiastically. Beckett's already grabbed the bathroom and from the sounds is having the fastest shower in recorded history.

Two hours later, formalities complete, they're in the empty shell of her new apartment, and Castle's looking dismally around. There isn't even a kettle, yet.

"We should have got coffee on the way."

"We didn't have time. The delivery'll be here any moment."

"Then what?"

"They take the bed upstairs, put it together, and then we go get a kettle. The next delivery isn't till twelve, and I don't know about you, but if I don't get coffee till after that I'll turn into a monster."

"You _are_ Bruce Banner," he says, and Beckett rolls her eyes and suddenly things are better, because she's still Beckett, still rolls her eyes at his lame humour, and when he takes her into his arms and kisses her she's very obviously still his, even if she might turn into the raging Hulk at any minute through lack of coffee.

Naturally, the kiss is interrupted by the delivery. Castle looks at the muscles on the delivery men, flexes his own bicep, thinks about Espo, and decides that he's only too glad the fitters are doing it. He and Espo could do it, but it's clearly an effort. This bedframe is sturdy, and unlikely to move a fraction of an inch once in place. Ah. Especially if one had a tendency to be – er – _athletic_. He wanders up the stairs after Beckett and watches her directing operations from a safe distance. Having bestowed a million-watt smile and soft words of thanks on them before they'd even got the bed through the door, they're probably enslaved for life. God knows, he seems to be.

The bed is swiftly assembled by the use of various tools that Castle doesn't even recognise and has no interest in learning about. Beckett looks admiringly at it, while the men bring in the mattress and place it in the corner, still in its covering, explaining that they're grubby and they don't want to stain it. Castle doesn't look at Beckett for fear of laughter. He wouldn't want to stain it either. But a good mattress cover may be indicated. The two fitters leave, paid, happy, and floating out on the Beckett smile.

"Okay, let's get this mattress on," Beckett says briskly, and to Castle's joint amusement and amazement produces a small pocket-knife to slit the plastic cover.

"What do you think you're doing, Beckett?"

"We're going to put the mattress on."

"No, _we_ are not. _You_ are not going to do anything strenuous. I am not taking you back to the ER. The doctor will kill us both." She rolls her eyes at him again. "I can move this for you, and then you take the plastic off when it's at the frame."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Yep, but you can't move it on your own with your ribs still mending so you don't have a choice," Castle says very smugly. Beckett makes a very irritated noise but complies. Castle flexes his muscles and, much to his well-concealed surprise (those sessions with Espo and Ryan must _really_ have paid off) shifts the mattress without difficulty with the weight – it's very awkward – to be vertical against the bed frame. Beckett rapidly slices through the plastic and the mattress is shortly in place. They were as efficient a team at situating mattresses as they are at crime.

Castle looks at the bed. Beckett looks at the bed. The air changes in an instant to hot, sparking and heavy with desire. Castle sits on the mattress, pulls a still-standing Beckett to him by her hips and then supports her weight as he pulls her further to be lying on him lying on her bed. Then he kisses her, or maybe she kisses him, and everything incinerates in a hot haze of sheer lust and absolute privacy.

It's only when Castle rolls Beckett over and looms up over her that either of them realise that this is not a good idea.

"We can't," she says, panting a little and definitely regretful. "Not yet."

"Later," Castle drawls lazily. "Later, Beckett, we're going to christen your apartment properly."

"If you break a bottle of champagne on the bed frame you are cleaning it up."

Castle waggles a lascivious eyebrow and leers. "Not quite what I was thinking. I prefer drinking the champagne. I'll even buy it." He runs a hand lightly over her. "You promised me coffee."

"We need to go and buy the kettle first." She looks down at her watch, and a strange expression flickers across her face, gone almost before it's there to identify. Castle thinks that it might have been agony, but now isn't the time to pry. There are too many things to do. He holds up two pieces of paper.

"What're those?"

"Our lists. Just in case."

"Well, it's after ten o'clock. We need to be done by eleven thirty – I don't want to miss the delivery."

"I have an idea." Beckett looks disturbingly and depressingly cynical as he says that.

"Yeah?"

"Let's just get coffee at a coffee shop and then after the next delivery go on a road trip."

"Huh?"

Castle's eyes dance. "There's a _huge_ Walmart in North Bergen. Let's go get all the basics there, after the delivery."

"How do _you_ know that?"

"How do you not?"

"Never thought about it. How do you know?"

"Research." Beckett harrumphs. "C'mon. It'll be fun." _And I can pretend that we're shopping for ourselves, not just you. As if we were cohabiting. Like we should be._

"Okay. _Now_ can we go get coffee?"

"Sure."

So they do, sitting in Irving Farm, not hurrying, sipping their usual orders. It fills the time companionably, as they argue about the necessity for stocking the fridge – Castle says yes, Beckett says no, but compromises on some cans of soup and suchlike – and the correct arrangement of towels in the airing cupboard. In such domestic disputation they pass the time till eleven, and then meander back to the new apartment, hand in hand. Castle is as content as is possible in the circumstances. It's re-dawning on him that privacy from his redheads is a very desirable concept. The last few days have been a touch uncomfortable as the piercing looks from his mother have increased and Beckett's range of movement has also increased. It's been rather too tense for his peace of mind.

Once the delivery is done, the linens put away, and the bed made, without more than a couple of snatched kisses and a minor and really quite irrelevant amount of mutual touching up, Castle insists on buying lunch and then they take off on their road trip – as Beckett puts it, _very_ unfairly, because once Castle's got an idea in his head he won't leave her alone till they try it out.

"I didn't notice you objecting to my ideas the last few nights, Beckett," he says insinuatingly as they swing out into the traffic. She blushes, and covers it up with a growl. "I bet you won't object later, either."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	18. Chapter 18

**18: A time to get**

They exit Walmart with enough household accoutrements for – according to Beckett – a year. She is voluble. She's also wrong, but that doesn't stop her. Castle supposes that if she actually _lived_ in her apartment rather than simply dropping in on it for – oh, say five hours a night? – she might need more stuff.

"Why did you insist on getting all this?"

"Well, your cart wouldn't have housed a mouse for a week."

"Nonsense. There was exactly what I usually get."

"Yeah, when you had a home with supplies already there." She whitens. Ooops. He puts an arm round her. "You need everything. You know that. It won't change just because you don't want to think about it."

"You shouldn't have paid for anything. You should have added it to my trolley." She pins him on her stare. "You _will_ bank the check I'm about to write you. I _will_ make sure you have."

"Can't I give you anything?" he says, unhappily.

"You got my watch fixed. I haven't asked about that, have I? I haven't asked and I won't ask. Promise."

"Well, no, but…"

"But me no buts, Castle. "

"That's not Shakespeare, you know." He's distracted for an instant.

"Henry Fielding." Castle is shocked into silence. "Now, how much?" He's so flabbergasted by her literary knowledge that he actually hands her the till receipt without thinking. She pulls out her checkbook, scrawls across the paper, signs it with her usual slash and hands him both back. "If that's not cashed by the end of this week I will _not_ be happy." Castle droops pathetically at her and widens his eyes. "Nope. I'm not using your money."

"But I _want_ to help."

"No. I know you do, but I gotta do this myself." That's sufficiently definite that Castle backs off. He supposes it makes sense, in the context. It's her life, and she can manage it, fund it, and live it. He just wants it to be with him. Oh. Ah. _Right_. She doesn't want to live _off_ him. Much becomes instantly far clearer. He gets that. Oh boy does he get that. So although he has rather less need for her check than he does for a pair of sparkly pink earmuffs, he'll cash it. Because she needs him to cash it. Because she needs to prove – and needs him to prove – that she won't live off him. Which means that she's in this for real.

"Okay. I'll cash it Monday. Promise." He smiles, a little mischievously. "But I am allowed to buy you a housewarming gift. I saw this rug in GreenFlea, and if you liked it…"

"Yeah. You can do that. That's what friends do. Now c'mon. Let's get back and put all this away and" – she smiles very wickedly and seductively – "christen my new apartment properly." Castle perks up instantly. All over. "With coffee." He splutters, then laughs and kisses her.

"We'll start with coffee, Beckett. I've got plans for you." He looks down at her in her flat shoes. "Oh yes. Later."

Offloading everything and carrying it up is tedious and tiring, even with the elevator, and is, in Castle's view, definitely _not_ improved by having to remind Beckett that she is not allowed to strain herself in any way because he is not taking her back to the ER and didn't they have this conversation four times already? Eventually it's all done. Beckett makes coffee, and in default of the couch she doesn't yet have they sit on the floor. It's oddly reminiscent of college.

"I think you need a couch," Castle says. "It would be more comfortable than the floor."

"Yeah, well. All in good time. I don't even have a table and chairs yet."

"Just a bed," he murmurs.

"I'd cook you dinner," Beckett says, ignoring that, "but I'm not eating sitting on the floor. Let's go find somewhere to eat. My treat." Castle scowls theatrically. "We already had this conversation. My treat."

"Okay. But I hope buying me dinner doesn't mean you expect me to put out. I'm not that easy." He affects a naïve, innocent look. Beckett laughs so hard she nearly knocks her coffee over.

"I don't think I need to buy you dinner to get you to put out, Castle. I think I just need to do this," and she undoes the top three buttons of her shirt, then his, kisses him hard and scrapes nails across his nipples. And then the evil witch pulls away, stands up and makes for the bedroom. What's a man supposed to do? Of course he follows her.

They christen the bed in some style. When _not_ in his loft, Castle discovers, Beckett is not shy of making noise, issuing orders and/or requests – mostly orders – and finding out in some detail what makes _him_ make noises. Quite a lot, as it happens. And in the end they're happily cuddled up together, Beckett's head on his chest and his arms around her, both of them contentedly half-dozing.

Unfortunately they have to uncurl, wash, and dress. The shower turns out to have superb water pressure but one huge disadvantage, being that there is not room for both of them. Castle sits and pouts spectacularly all the time that Beckett is showering, and hopes that she's doing the same while he showers.

Dinner passes quietly, in a Thai place on Amsterdam. There's not a lot of talking. Beckett is obviously pondering: Castle is steadily becoming unhappier that at the end of the evening he won't have a Beckett coming home and sleeping in his bed. When he realises that he can't even go back to Beckett's for a _proper_ end to the evening, he buries himself in his beer and paranoid, pathetically petty ponderings of his own. What if she doesn't like his rug? What if she doesn't come to the loft any more? What if she simply…drifts away, now she's so far away? He reaches for her hand, and holds on tightly, trying to hold her to him.

Her fingers skate lightly over his hand, stroking rhythmically, reassuring in a way he couldn't describe, and then close over his. "You're thinking too loud. D'you want coffee, or are we done?"

"Coffee at yours?" he asks rather plaintively, really not ready to go home yet. Not when it means leaving alone.

"Sure," Beckett says, and something in her eyes and tone makes him think that she's maybe not any more happy with him going home than he is.

They walk back tucked together, Castle's arm round her shoulders, Beckett's arm round his waist and her hand slipped into his back pocket. Which is unfair. She keeps pinching his ass, and making him squeak. The few blocks it takes them to return have probably left him with bruises.

"Ow! Stoppit, Beckett!"

"Stop what?" she purrs innocently. She looks about as innocent as a succubus.

"Pinching my butt. It hurts. Stop it."

"Okay."

He's surprised by her acquiescence, until he realises that they're back already, and she's taken her hand out his pocket to open her door. She turns the wrong way, he notices, her hand slapping the wrong side of the doorway to find the light switch, and she growls with frustration. There's a tiny hesitation as she orients on the kitchenette and the kettle, a moment to find the mugs, a half-turn till she locates the fridge. Nothing's quite smooth or practised yet, nothing is quite where she seems to expect. It occurs to Castle that Beckett is, understandably, smoother in his kitchen than this new, unfamiliar one.

He prowls up behind her and makes himself useful by finding the creamer. When he's done that, he makes himself useful by wrapping her in and occupying her mouth till the kettle has boiled. If he has to go home, he's going to hold her close for as long as he can. He knows she had to move out. He _does_ know it.

He just doesn't have to like it.

They drink their coffee sitting on the floor, again, in an ever more depressed silence. Beckett leans into Castle, drops her head on to his shoulder, and wriggles in. Their hands join on his leg, fingers tightly twined.

"I ought to go."

"Mmm," comes a dispirited hum.

He starts to stand. Beckett struggles to her feet, still a little awkward and protective of her ribs, and hugs him.

"Thanks, Castle." She doesn't say anything more, simply kisses him. And then he kisses her, and then her mouth opens under his, and then all his need and want and desire and upset that he _has to leave_ flood out and he takes her mouth as if he'll always have the right to possess and protect, pulls her into him and shows her with his responses how much she means.

And then he lifts away, and leaves.

The sound of the door shutting is the saddest sound imaginable, and there is absolutely nothing either of them can do about it. He has responsibilities, and his love for his daughter, and shucking them is unthinkable. He'd always wonder – she'd always wonder – if he'd shuck the next responsibility, another love, as readily. He's never, ever wanted to leave his daughter alone. He doesn't now. He wants Beckett to come back with him, and stay, but she won't, and in some way, she can't. She needs space from his family.

But she'd said she didn't need space from him. He clings to that, all the way home in the cab, and consoles himself that he'll see her again tomorrow before they all go back to GreenFlea. Actually – that's a point. He has no idea what time they're all meeting up. Somehow that subject hadn't come up in – er – conversation. He taps out a quick query, and presses Send.

 _Come at around 9.30. Meeting the others at GreenFlea at 10.30_ comes back, almost immediately. He feels better, that she's so quick to reply, and that she wants to see him before they meet the gang. He bites down on the sudden feeling that she's standing, solitary, looking out the window at the rear lights of each passing car and truck, flaring in the lonely dark, bites back the instant impulse to tell the cab driver to turn around, to take him back. He mustn't go back, tonight.

He shares a glass of wine with his mother, only making a couple of barbed references to her annexation of yet another bottle he would rather she had missed, and conversation with Alexis.

"But Dad, why are you even home?"

"Pumpkin, you're here," Castle says affectionately. "Where else would I be?" His mother regards him beadily.

"With Katherine, darling." Castle casts her a fulminating glare.

"If it weren't for you, Mother, she wouldn't" – he stops, suddenly remembering Alexis's presence.

"Wouldn't what, Dad?" _Oh, shit._ Alexis looks between him and his mother, acquiring an unpleasantly beady regard of her own. "Grams? What did you do?"

"Nothing, sweetie." Alexis stares hard at her. "My friend, Doug – you remember Doug? – is going to Europe and needed an apartment-sitter, and I thought that Katherine would like to do it, so I suggested it to her."

"Grams!"

"Now, pumpkin. Grams thought it was a good plan." Castle flatters himself that he kept every drop of bitterness out of that sentence.

"Well, I don't. So Grams made Detective Beckett think she should move out?"

"Sweetie, no." Both Castle and Alexis turn identically disbelieving glares on his mother. "I would never have done that."

"You made Detective Beckett move out?" Alexis screeches. Castle claps his hands over his ears. "Grams, how _could_ you?"

"I didn't, darling. I thought she should have stayed here with your Dad."

"You did a real fine job of convincing her," Castle says bitterly. "If you hadn't suggested apartment-sitting Beckett wouldn't have started apartment hunting nearly as soon." His mother looks – not nearly guilty or penitent enough for Castle's taste. A hair shirt and sackcloth would be a good start, he thinks. Alexis clearly thinks the same.

"Grams, I really wish you hadn't done that. I liked Detective Beckett being here." Alexis casts her grandmother a very disappointed look. "I'm going upstairs."

"But sweetie…"

"No. You were wrong, Grams."

On which scarifying note Alexis makes an exit that wouldn't have disgraced Joyce Grenfell. Castle resists the urge to applaud, and considers that Alexis is sometimes far too adult for anyone's comfort.

When he looks up his mother has slunk away. This is fortunate. By tomorrow night he might not want to rain his annoyance over her. Maybe. He'll just go shoot a few innocent avatars for a while. When that palls, or he's calmed down, he'll go to bed. Which thought irritates him all over again. He wants, he thinks childishly, his cuddly Beckett-bear. Since a toddler-like tantrum is unlikely to produce his Beckett-bear, he doesn't indulge in one. He shoots a few more avatars, instead. Then he considers his phone. It's only ten-thirty. He could call. He shouldn't call. But he could call.

He picks up the phone. He's about to tap the screen when it lights up with a text. _The bed's too big. Shouldn't have let you persuade me._ She's managed to find a pouting emoji, which is a piece of humour he'd never have expected from the sardonic brain of Kate Beckett, even though she has revealed a more playful, childish side with him these last couple of weeks. He'd never have believed in that before, either. It's never appeared at work.

 _You love it really_ , he sends back.

 _Hmph. Night, Castle._

 _Till tomorrow, Beckett_.

He wonders if, in her solitary apartment up on the West Side, she's as lonely as he is now, missing his warmth as he is missing hers, wishing they were snuggling up together.

* * *

Castle is on Beckett's doorstep at nine-twenty-nine and fifty-nine seconds, achieved by careful timing from a more robust and cheaper watch than he would normally wear. However, furniture shifting is not good for expensive, delicate watches, and he'd rather not damage his favourites.

"You're not wearing your watch," he says, as soon as greetings have been exchanged. Greetings, in this case, being an extremely leisurely kiss hello.

"No. You just mended it. I don't want it damaged." There's the odd flick of pain again. This time Castle identifies it as a memory of fire and pain and noise.

"Good. I don't want to be a watchmaker."

"I don't think it would suit you. It needs constant attention to the tiny details and an orderly approach. No scope for wild theories there." Castle pouts. Beckett nips his protruding lower lip, and ducks away before he can turn it into a kiss. "Pouting won't get you kisses, Castle." He pouts harder. "Now," she says, from halfway to the door, "you coming, Castle? We need to get the truck."

The truck turns out to be a smallish pickup. Beckett drops Castle at GreenFlea, and takes the truck home, explaining that there's unlikely to be parking and she's not wasting time searching: they'll get everything to one place and then she'll bring the pickup over.

"Pick up the pickup?"

"Oh, God. Spare me the puns."

Castle makes his way to the meeting point and finds Ryan and Lanie, with Espo appearing only a moment later.

"What's the plan?" Esposito asks briskly. Castle shrugs.

"Wait for Beckett. She's the one with the plan." Just as he's about to say _She's parking the truck_ and thereby reveal considerably more than he should or than he wants to, she shows up.

"What's the plan, Beckett?" Beckett doesn't even get her mouth open before Lanie starts.

"First point of the plan is that Missy Broken-Ribs here doesn't fetch or carry anything heavier than an ice-cream."

"Lanie!"

"No, you don't. I got my sources and they tell me that you cracked your ribs then went out against orders and got them broken. So since you aren't a barbecued rack, girl, you don't do any carrying. You hear me?"

Castle looks at Espo who looks at Ryan and all three of them look at Lanie, who is unaccountably not dead yet. From the glare she's getting, she ought to have shrivelled into a cindered slug.

"But…"

"No buts. If I see you carrying anything heavier than your keys I'll wrap you up like an Egyptian mummy.

Beckett humphs and harrumphs and grumbles and growls and not one single syllable has the slightest effect on Lanie. Castle and the boys stay out of her view. They're having some difficulty controlling both their expressions and their laughter.

"O _kay_ then. Just remember it was your idea when you have to listen to these three complaining about sore muscles and stiff backs."

Lanie grins widely. "Stiff backs? Is that what you call it?"

"Lanie, I don't know what you mean."

Lanie raises a very sceptical eyebrow. "Really, girlfriend? Pull the other leg." Her grin turns evil. "Or your writer-b…man's third one. Much more fun." Beckett descends into a swamp of profane muttering in two languages and turns her back huffily on Lanie, who sniggers and sends the others a mischievous thumbs-up.

"Okay," Beckett says firmly. "Now that Doctor Tyrant there has finished, the plan is this." And she outlines a carefully researched route to get the furniture to one point with the least carrying and the most convenience. "When it's all in one place, I'll get the truck and we'll" – Lanie coughs – " _okay,_ Lanie! – get it all in and take it home. And since Lanie won't let me do anything, I'm going to get a mirror on the way."

As with most of Beckett's organisational efforts – and natural authority – it all works perfectly. The last thing that happens is that Castle remembers the rug and goes dashing back into the market to get it, returning with it on his shoulder and looking, as Espo puts it, like a carpet-seller in the souk. Castle simply smiles sunnily and says "Housewarming gift." He doesn't mention the other small bag tucked in his jacket pocket, and nobody calls him on it. Possibly this is because he's carefully at the back of the group where they can't see it. It ruins the line of his jacket, and he'll never hear the end of _that_. Anyway, it's private.

Beckett swoops in with the pickup so that they pack it up in minimal time and escape before a passing parking attendant can catch them.

"For three cops and an ME you're scofflaws when it comes to parking regulations," Castle points out, to universal derision.

"You've never got a ticket? Get real."

"Speeding tickets, sure. No parking tickets." He smiles smugly. "Parking under my block." If they weren't perched in the back of the pickup – Lanie had called shotgun and not one of the men had dared to quibble – he's fairly sure Ryan and Espo would have taken revenge for that.

Unpacking is dealt with equally rapidly, for the same reasons. Beckett tosses Castle her apartment keys.

"Will you put the kettle on, while I return the truck? I only rented it for today, and I've got to get it back by four. I'd rather take it now and then we can shift the stuff into place when I get back."

"I'm coming with you," Lanie says. "You and me need to have a talk." Beckett briefly looks as if she's been caught in the headlights.

"Don't you wanna take a break, Lanie?"

"No, I wanna talk to you."

Castle would love to be a fly on the wall for that discussion. Unfortunately, he's been left with the keys, the heavy lifting, and the prospect of the boys cross-questioning him. He's not sure who got the worse end of that deal.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. For reference, there is only one more chapter, and possibly a short epilogue._


	19. Chapter 19

**19: A time to give**

As it happens, and with the aid of the elevator, the heavy lifting isn't as heavy as the three of them expect. Castle pleads a bathroom break and manages to dispose of his very private gift when he takes advantage of it.

"Where does it go?"

"No idea. Let's just put it in the middle of the floor and wait."

"Maybe we should arrange it?" Ryan suggests.

"You're mad," Esposito replies bluntly. "What's the point of puttin' it anywhere? She'll make us move it."

"Naw." Castle and Espo stare at Ryan.

"No?"

"No. _Lanie'll_ make us move it. Beckett would _help_ us move it. Lanie won't let her, though."

"Just as well. I'm not having another go-around with the ER doctor. I think next time Beckett turns up there with hurt ribs he'll have a breakdown."

Ryan sniggers.

"I heard it was the EMT in the ambulance who had a breakdown."

"He's the first person who's been pleased to see me show up at a crime scene," Castle says.

"Aw, Castle. That's not true." Castle preens hopefully. "We're always pleased to see you." He preens more. "Means Beckett's got someone to shoot that ain't us." He droops. "Now, where's that coffee Beckett told you to make us?"

Castle puts coffee together and finds mugs rather too quickly, he realises. Nothing happens till the coffee is mostly drunk, but unfortunately the delay does not mean that the boys have forgotten anything. Cops, he knows and right now deeply regrets, never seem to forget anything. Worse than elephants. Maybe that's why Beckett likes elephants?

"How'd you know where everything is?"

"Helped Beckett get it all yesterday," he says laconically. Less is definitely more, when it comes to answering the boys. "Then I got to carry it all for her."

"Bet you're glad we made you train with us."

"Yeah. I really expected that I'd be using it to shift furniture." He hums a few bars of _Money for Nothing_. "Writing's a lot better than heavy lifting."

"Yeah, bro. Better get used to the training, 'cause you're gonna be doin' a lot more of it."

"What? Why?"

"You didn't get to Beckett fast enough. You need to speed up."

"So you'd better be in the gym at seven for the next week." The boys grin evilly at him.

"Had he?" Not one of them had heard the door opening. All of them hear Beckett's icy tones. "Care to explain why, Esposito?" Esposito fails to come up with a good answer. "Since Espo seems to have had a momentary seizure, Ryan, why don't _you_ explain. And while you're at it, you can explain what you mean by _didn't get to Beckett fast enough_."

There is a very nasty silence, in which even Lanie, who's sidled in to watch the fun, doesn't say a single word. Espo and Ryan keep opening their mouths, reconsidering, and closing them again. They are kebabbed. Skewered. Lanced. Or just plain screwed. This is going to be extraordinary, Castle knows. Extraordinarily ugly.

Beckett starts to pace, never taking her eyes off her cringing team. She's prowling, panther-like, and the boys are her prey.

"If you won't tell me, I'll start speculating. You won't like me" –

"When you're angry." Her furious glower shuts Castle up instantly. Ryan makes the mistake of snickering.

"Castle is _not a cop_. Let's start there. So – for those of you who seem to have forgotten what being a cop _means_ – that means that _we_ protect _him_. Whatever he thinks about it." She takes a breath. "Now. Why _exactly_ do you think I can't do my job?"

" _What_!" the boys ejaculate in sync. "We don't… we never… what d'you mean?"

"I don't need a civilian protecting me. I don't need a bodyguard. The minute I need someone protecting me is the minute I should have my ass booted out the precinct. So tell me, why are you saying that Castle _didn't get to me fast enough_? That's not his job. It's not his call – shut up, Castle – what I do. Accidents happen. Psychos happen. We deal with it. You do not try to put a babysitter on me or wrap me in cotton wool. If you wanna do that, there's a daycare centre on East Tenth. I'm sure they're hiring."

There is a short silence.

"Don't try it again, boys." There is a certain amount of frantic headshaking. Castle is still trying to come to terms with Grizzly-Bear Beckett. Accent firmly on the _grisly_ aspects. She turns to the kitchen area. The boys twitch like they might make for the door. Without even looking round Beckett says, "You're not going anywhere till the furniture's in place." Kettle on, she turns and grins widely. "The beers and pizza that I got to give you all dinner and say thanks don't come out the fridge till then, either." Both boys brighten up immediately.

Castle knows that none of them will ever need to refer to the dressing-down again. He also knows that he'll be training under the gentle (yeah, right) supervision of Esposito and Ryan three times a week. At seven a.m., because that's the only time Beckett won't spot it. It's good for him. It really is. It occurs to him that if he's fit, he can spend some time romantically sweeping Beckett up into his arms: a thought which appeals to his overly-romantic soul. He knew he'd find an advantage eventually, and this is quite a large one. Five-foot-nine of advantage, in fact.

Beckett appears to have a clear idea of where everything should go, which makes life much easier. Amusement is provided by Lanie's minatory stare every time Beckett so much as twitches her fingers. Fairly shortly, everything's arranged as she likes it. Castle's rug is set diagonally in the middle of the living area, safely away from the table and chairs. She'd got six, Castle ruminates, presumably for just this sort of situation. The only major thing that's missing is a couch.

"Am I allowed to lift the beer out?"

"Only if it's one bottle at a time," Espo quips.

"Not you too. Just for that, yours is last. Lanie? Ryan? Castle?" She hands them out and tosses the opener to Esposito. "Oops, did I forget you?" she says, grinning. She passes a beer over to Espo, and takes one herself.

"Thanks, everyone. Couldn't have got all this sorted without you." She smiles round. "Looks great." There are various murmurs of _happy new home_ , and suchlike. "Let's have dinner. First dinner here."

It's amazing how much pizza can be eaten and beer drunk in good company after a productive day. His rug looks just right, and every so often Beckett casts it an affectionate glance. Affectionate glances at him are in short supply, and are extremely brief when they do happen. That, of course, may be because the other three are watching both of them extremely closely. Lanie, in particular, is exhibiting some of the observational traits of a hunting falcon. Castle wonders what they had talked about when Beckett returned the truck.

Finally the party starts to break up, and everyone drifts towards the door. Beckett thanks them all again, comments that they'll all be working off the pizza tomorrow in the precinct, and manages to shoo everyone but Castle out the door. He claims that as the only one who doesn't need to be in at eight he'll be the one to help with the washing up. Everyone but Beckett looks cynically disbelieving and manages, without saying it, to convey _yeah right who are you fooling_ at jet-fighter volume. Beckett simply closes the front door and ignores, with massive dignity, Esposito's raised eyebrows and knowing smirk.

Castle reaches her before the noise of the door closing has died, and has his lips on hers and her body pressed against him barely later. He spends some time kissing her before he says anything. Beckett is not complaining. Very much not complaining.

"How'd you sleep last night, Beckett?"

"Okay." That doesn't sound reassuring. He pulls back a little, examines her, detects very little sign of a dreadful night, and no signs that a bit more sleep might have been helpful, and decides that the best thing to do is kiss her some more, and then to walk her back to a convenient wall to lean against, and then to take her mouth in a very much more definitive fashion. Beckett runs her hands into his hair and brings her leg up around his waist to trap him, encouraging him inward and closer. It would be very unmannerly to refuse a lady. Especially a lady who's inclined to be unladylike. So of course he doesn't: he explores and discovers and is in his turn discovered.

While he's doing that, his fingers are swiftly undoing her shirt, and then finding soft skin and skating teasingly over her breasts in their pretty soft cotton and lace, and then undoing – God, he loves front fastening lingerie – the bra, and then, since she's so much better than she has been and there's no sign at all that it's hurting her – quite the reverse – for the first time has a chance to play _properly_ and show her all the ways in which he can make her feel really, _really_ good without needing to worry about her ribs. He slides down from her lips to her jaw to her throat to her clavicles and then takes a jump to the left and then a step to the right and _that's_ the pelvic thrust. He has to hold her tightly while he traces his tongue round her nipples and then licks harder, nips very softly to see if she likes it – she does – and then suckles till she's moved from tiny sighs to soft moans and drags him back upward to her mouth and then drags him upward to her bed. Well. Dragging is a considerable overstatement. One small move in the general direction of the stairs and he's just as fast as she to mount them.

By the time they've hit the bedroom, Beckett's shirt and bra have hit the floor and skittered down the stairs; Castle's shirt has slithered under the bed, and his shoes are missing. They're probably chasing Beckett's round the lower floor. He catches Beckett, swings her up into his arms in the manner of a latter-day Errol Flynn, and places her in the centre of her lovely large bed. Plenty of room for them to play as they please, and later, when playtime's over and they're tired, to fall asleep together, wrapped into each other.

At least for a while.

He shakes the momentary chill away, looks at Beckett, smiling up at him and licking her lips with the tip of a pink tongue, and in a slow, smooth seduction slides her pants off her legs and discards them. He kisses his way back up to the narrow lace edge of her panties, avoids the key areas and continues his ascent of Beckett to land up back on her mouth. Along the way he's managed to remove his own pants, and she's taking full advantage. He doesn't really think any more, after that.

They're very contentedly snuggled up together when Beckett _finally_ notices his other present.

"What's that, Castle?"

"A housewarming gift."

"You already gave me a rug." But she's sitting up and reaching for the parcel on the nightstand. She doesn't, yet, have a dresser. He's sure she will, soon. He'll probably have to carry it. She starts to unwrap the brown paper. Under that is bubble wrap. Under that, by which time she's becoming impatient, is tissue paper. "Do I just keep unwrapping layers and find a magic bean in the middle?"

"No, Beckett. Have patience." She sticks her tongue out. Castle smirks. She rips off the tissue paper and stops dead.

"It's lovely. What's it for?" she asks, looking at a box, around four inches square, with a metal tracery in a Rennie Macintosh design which complements the mirror she'd got and the bedframe.

"It's for your watch, and necklace," Castle says, a little embarrassed. Beckett looks at the box.

"It's beautiful," she says softly. "I love it."

She opens the box to reveal the padded base of the interior, lifts her watch off the nightstand and places it reverently within. Her necklace is removed and put beside it, equally carefully. She gazes down at them for some several seconds, silent, shoulders shivering.

"They… I wouldn't have them, if it wasn't for you. You picked them up – you went back to get them, and you got them mended, and you gave me them back. Now you've given me somewhere to keep them safe." Her voice cracks. "You kept me safe. You warned me and so I got time to hide in the bath and you got me out and came to the hospital and then you took me into your home and kept me safe…" She dissolves under his eyes. He takes the box from her and puts it out the way, then cuddles her into his chest, pulls the comforter up over them and simply holds her.

She curls into him, an arm around his midriff, her face turned to his skin, resting against him. "You saved everything that mattered, Castle."

"I did, didn't I?" Castle murmurs, clasping her tighter. "Here it is."

"Yeah." She presses closer and holds him tightly in response. "Right here. 'S all I need." She kisses him before that fully sinks in.

"You're what matters, not the ring or the watch. They're just symbols. Memories." She stops, for a brief moment. "And they _do_ matter. Memories are important." Castle nods above her dark head, unseen. "But reality – life – matters more." Another pause, a deep, scraping breath. "You're reality. There all the time. When it really mattered, you were there. Every minute."

"Count on it," he murmurs, but he doesn't think she hears.

"Just in time. We might not have had any time at all." She turns her face up and looks straight at him. "So let's not waste any more time." Beckett-briskness is abruptly back. She slithers over and up his body and conquers his mouth without a pause. That takes remarkably little time, but lasts much longer. Eventually a pause for breath is taken.

"Let's not," he purrs, and conquers in return. For the first time he's free and able to roll her over to her back and rise over her as, for a fortnight, she's risen above him, and then slide into the warm wet welcome of her body. No more wasting time apart, when they can be together like this.

Not every minute, not all the time: it's too new and too fragile and too intense; they'd burn up in it and crash in flames. Of course there will be arguments and rows and disagreements and fights: times when one or other walks away to find space and cool off alone for a while; times when they simply need to be apart; even times when one or other needs solitude simply because they do. Then, later, there will be making up and coming back and being together again. Little by little, bit by bit, they'll become closer together. He hasn't lost her, he's found her: according to her own words, he's saved her. They know how they each feel.

Now, though, rather than becoming closer together, they should come together in the most direct of ways. Castle stops thinking, and starts acting, very firmly in the here and now. Specifically, that he and Beckett should come together, right here, right now. He essays a slow slide, then another, smooth movements that cause her fingers to lock into his back and pressure him to move faster, stronger strokes, more forceful. No need to take such care, as if she'd break, as he's had to – especially as she wouldn't take care. He mimics the movement of his body with his mouth on hers, moves fingers between them and no time at all is wasted as they come together.

"I don't want to go home," Castle grumps, some time later.

"I don't want to be late for work tomorrow," Beckett points out. "I need to sleep. It's late. You need to be home for your family."

Castle cuddles up, unwilling to leave just yet, and strokes over her soft skin, not quite suggestively. "You can go to sleep, and I'll go then."

"You'll fall asleep too. You're halfway there." Um. Yeah. She might have a point there. It's a very comfortable bed, and it's got his very comforting Beckett-bear in it, in his arms. He grumbles wordlessly, but drags himself away to clean up. Beckett stays cosily in bed, eyes shut. She opens one eye – slightly – when he reappears, and then both in a clear ogle as he dresses.

"Checking me out, Beckett?"

"Mmmm...no. Making sure you don't leave your socks behind." How unkind. He needs his socks to keep his toes warm. Since he can't keep them warm by tucking them up to Beckett. Humph.

"Checking me out," he repeats smugly. Beckett half-heartedly tugs a pillow towards her, but can't be bothered to muster the energy to throw it at him. He leans down and kisses her thoroughly. Her hands lock round the back of his neck. He's already kneeling down to kiss her more deeply when he realises that he is _supposed_ to be leaving. There is a noticeable reluctance in her release of him.

"Don't want to go."

"You have to go." She opens her sleepy eyes a little further. "Don't want you to go, but you have to."

"Yeah…" he drags out. "I just wanted to spend a little more time with you."

"We got plenty of time, Castle. All the time in the world." She sits up and hugs him. "See you tomorrow."

"Till tomorrow."

* * *

Tomorrow arrives, and Castle falls out of his unhappily empty bed, through the equally solo shower, and achieves breakfast and relocation to the precinct without ever quite losing the feeling that he's been left alone. She didn't even give him a key to her apartment, he realises, miserably. He wanders dispiritedly into the bullpen bearing coffee and a bear claw, and finds Beckett at her desk.

"Hey, Castle."

"Hey."

The coffee and bear claw are despatched in short order, with some desultory conversation around the cases and the complete unfairness of not being allowed out even though she is _absolutely fine_ and there is no problem at all with her ribs. A short silence follows.

"Can we talk?" Beckett asks. Oh God. That's never a good phrase. But she doesn't look tense, nor are there any of the many little female tells which might precede a Dear John – or Dear Rick – conversation. It's still not relaxing.

"Sure."

"Not here. C'mon." She leads him back to the elevator and out of the precinct, to a convenient coffee shop, buys the coffees before he can (humph) and sits them down at a small corner table. And then she interlinks one hand with his, slips the other into her jacket and brings out a small package, beautifully wrapped. She pushes it across the table to land in front of him. He looks, not at the package, but at her. She looks back, inscrutably, hand still in his, fingers a little tighter than a second ago. Aha. This _matters_.

"What's this?" But he thinks he might already know.

"Open it and you'll find out," she says mischievously. She's obviously not going to say anything more. No clues. He starts to unwrap it. Well, he _tries_ to. Beckett is clearly a subscriber to the _thorough_ school of wrapping. Every last edge of the decorative paper is Scotch-taped within – or more accurately _beyond_ – an inch of its life.

"Can I borrow your pocket-knife?" Beckett extracts it, slides it over, and wraps both hands round her coffee mug, watching with sardonic amusement as he needs both hands to open it, very cautiously. Finally he uncovers a smallish box. He examines the leather exterior.

"Open it," Beckett commands. He pouts at her.

"My gift," he says possessively. "I'll open it in my own good time." He doesn't understand the swift laughter rising in Beckett's eyes, nor her less-than muffled gurgles. She's watching his face with bright, happy eyes. His fingers deftly trip the catch and he looks into the box.

 _Oh. Ohhh. Oh oh oh._

She _hadn't_ forgotten. It's a set of keys, _obviously_ for her apartment, on a keychain, with a tiny fob watch – _ticking_ – on the end. He stares at it, speechless, taking her hands into his. "Wow," is all he manages, blinking back a little unmanly dampness.

After a little minute he takes it out and simply gazes on it. "It's… it's great." Words, his forte, have gone missing. "Why a watch?"

"Because you gave me time, Castle. Time to live… and time to love."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. There will be a (very) short epilogue tomorrow, so I haven't tagged this as complete yet. I appreciate all the comments and support._


	20. Chapter 20

**Epilogue**

"Not you, Detective Beckett," the ER doctor says very unhappily. "Not you _again_. What have you done this time?" There's a definite flavour of _and why is it always me who's the attending when you do_?

"I slipped," Beckett says, defensive-aggressively.

"Mmmm," says the doctor, disbelievingly. "Was that due to a bomb? Or did a suspect throw himself on top of you?"

"She slipped on the wet bathroom floor," Castle chirrups reassuringly, as if he thinks the doctor will like that answer any better. "Not a crime scene or criminal in sight."

"There will be when I shoot you," Beckett hisses. Castle hides behind the doctor.

"I don't need to tell either of you the routine," he says wearily, moving to the side to give Beckett a clear shot, which Castle feels is very unfair. "Mr Castle, you keep her necklace. Detective Beckett, you come through to X-ray. I'm sure the techs will be pleased to see you again and it will be good for the students to learn how to deal with recalcitrant patients." Beckett growls.

"And don't do anything strenuous for three weeks."

"Six."

"Six? Why six? You said three last time."

"Because in six weeks I will be moving to Seattle and I will never have to treat you again. I'm not taking any risks with your ribs – or that I have to see you again – in those six weeks."

"This is all your fault," Beckett grates at Castle. Castle looks entirely impenitent.

"I told you that you needed to buy a bathmat. If you'd listened to me…"

"If you say _I told you so_ I will shoot you right now."

Castle subsides, retaining a know-it-all smirk. But just before Beckett is removed to X-ray, he gently takes her watch off. "I'll keep it for you. No matter how long you take, Beckett, I'll keep it safe." He pauses, smiles softly, and kisses her gently.

"We've got all the time in the world."

 _ **Fin.**_

* * *

 _Really, definitely the end this time. Thank you all for your support through this fluffy story. It has and is very much appreciated._


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